UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Affective Betrayal of Translated Political Modernity in Late Qing China DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in East Asian Languages and Literatures by Kam Jean Tsui Dissertation Committee: Professor Hu Ying, Chair Professor Michael A. Fuller Professor Martin W. Huang 2015 © 2015 Kam Jean Tsui TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii-vi CURRICULUM VITAE v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vi-vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: “Political Modernity and Its Musical Dissociation” 18 CHAPTER 2: “Dissolution of Modern Political Languages in the 62 Cinematic Spectacle” CHAPTER 3: “An Onto-hermeneutic Turn”: 129 From New Knowledge to Nameless Truth BIBLIOGRAPHY 192 ii Acknowledgment The project began life as a series of essays I wrote under the direction of Professor Hu Ying in the spring of 2010. Since then, the project and Liang Qichao have brought me many transformatively if not overpoweringly beautiful moments. In those moments, I always think of Hu Ying and am unfailingly grateful to her, for having encouraged me to undertake the project, and being the most insightful reader, sensitive critic, and forgiving teacher. Her understanding has sustained the project, and it is what makes it meaningful. In the two independent study classes I took with Professor Martin Huang, he taught me the skill of close reading and helped me refine the skill by carefully going through the many writing exercises he assigned. Reading materials Professor Huang chose pointed me to some of the most truthful and moving emotional struggles Ming Qing literati experienced. In addition to the academic training, I am forever grateful to him, and Professor Hu Ying, for giving me the chance to start a new life abroad. Professor Michael Fuller introduced me to the study of hermeneutics and helped me identify my scholarly interests. His encouragement and exceptional patience have given me the courage to go on exploring the uncertain when both Liang Qichao and my questions seemed helplessly and endlessly muddled. In Professor Rei Terada’s seminars, theoretical texts she read with us never failed to be rebelliously illuminating. I constantly regret not having studied harder and trying to learn more from her. (And of course, this is also an apology I owe every one of my teachers.) Besides my committee members, I am indebted to many teachers and friends. I thank Professors Ted Huters, Lydia Liu, and Qian Nanxiu for listening patiently to my ideas and giving me their perceptive suggestions. In the summer fellowship workshop held at Penn State University in 2014, Professor Kai-wing Chow helped me re-phrase and re-imagine the project from a historian perspective. Apart from offering his intellectual generosity, he was keen to remind me of the importance of “putting the feet” on the ground. Professor On-cho Ng’s work has continued to inspire this project, and I am grateful to Professor Chu Hung Lam for his warm encouragement and thoughtful words. Philip Anselmo, Hyonhui Choe, James Goebel, Vicky Hsieh, Erin Huang, Dai Lianbin, Ren Ke, Hyun Seon Park, Daniel Siakel, Margaret Tillman, and Huili Zheng have been more of teachers than friends to me. Many parts of the project are inspired by their brilliant ideas, hard work, and sage advice. Of these individuals, I am particularly grateful to Erin and Huili. They have endeavored to help me and answer my questions in whatever difficult situations they find themselves. They have selflessly demonstrated what it means to be an honest and dedicating young scholar. At UCI, different faculty members have given me important academic and personal guidance at various stages of my graduate career. I am thankful to Professors Jim Fujii, Kyung Hyun Kim, Serk-Bae Suh, Joseph Mckenna, Bert Scruggs, and Chungmoo Choi. Apart from introducing me to the beauty of modern Japanese film and literature, Professor Ted Fowler helped me build up my confidence as a teacher and as a reader. In addition, I thank Rouhmei Hsieh, Jessica Liu, and Ying Peterson for making Irvine a place like home for me. iii I thank UCI’s Center for Asian Studies for giving me two summer travel grants and the School of Humanities for the summer dissertation fellowship. These awards made some precious research and writing opportunities possible. Over the years, Circle Lo and Sunny Chan have remained the most understanding and supportive friends. Sunny’s literary genius unceasingly reminds me that to be able to go on writing is itself a blessing. I spent four brief days with Circle in New York last April. Apart from letting me eat her yummy ramen in the Japanese restaurant, she swallowed my repulsive order (and the many repulsive sides of me since our college days). I thank Eric Mok for introducing me to classical music and the emotional solace he sent me via books, CDs, toys, and his favorite Japanese anime clips. In Irvine, apart from spending the happy playtime together, Eunah Cho helped me survive many difficult moments. Kiki Liu makes every Saturday farmer market an occasion to look forward to. I am also thankful to Phyllis Yuen, Nicola (Luddie) Sher, April Tam, Candice Ng, and Martin Siu for their patience, friendship, and unfailing support. My granduncle Xu Zhongxun completed a brief family history before he passed away. The book taught me the importance of being a good person and a good historian. Lastly, my deepest gratitude goes to my parents and, again, Hu Ying. iv CURRICULUM VITAE Kam Jean Tsui 2006 B.A. in English and Translation Studies, University of Hong Kong 2009 M.Phil. in Translation Studies, University of Hong Kong 2015 Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Literatures University of California, Irvine FIELD OF STUDY Late imperial Chinese literature and intellectual history; Philosophical hermeneutics; Visual and acoustic culture; Translation studies PUBLICATIONS “Political Modernity and Its Musical Dissociation: A Study of Guomin and Geming in Liang Qichao’s Historical Biographies.” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 8.2 (2014): 302-330. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Affective Betrayal of Translated Political Modernity in Late Qing China By Kam Jean Tsui Doctor of Philosophy in East Asian Languages and Literatures University of California, Irvine, 2015 Professor Hu Ying, Chair “Affective Betrayal” traces the presence of emotion in journalistic and fictional writings published during the early 1900’s, and examines how it exposes the fragility and fragmentation of Chinese modernity. The dissertation begins with a simple observation: after the 1895 Sino- Japanese War, Chinese intellectuals circulated modern political concepts in a highly provocative fashion. Charged with lyrical intensity and calculated to provoke, their affective presentations contradict the assumption that Chinese modernity began life as a constructed “discourse” derived from cross-cultural exchanges and consolidated by power relations. To explicate how the lyrical intensity disrupted the semantic consistency of these translated concepts, the dissertation studies the formation of a “text” as the production of an aesthetic “object.” In my detailed formal analyses, I show that the leading late Qing intellectual Liang Qichao (1873-1929) circulated his writings as aural texts and pictorial texts, and that translated modern concepts were received as reading as well as listening and visualizing experiences. Focusing on epistemic uncertainties created by Liang’s competing affective presentations, I argue that Chinese modernity often teeters in a state of aesthetic ambivalence. It is displaced from the modern political discourse. By revealing the uncertainty and confusion that are deep-seated in China’s modernization vi process, the dissertation seeks to explain why the import of modern concepts had led to China’s continued political impasse, rather than rationality and progress, after the 1911 revolution. vii INTRODUCTION Let me begin with a brief background story. In 1895, China was defeated by Japan in the first Sino-Japanese war. Shocked and shaken, some liberal-minded late Qing intellectuals saw the urgent need of calling for a social and institutional reform. As the young intellectual Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873-1929) became increasingly familiar with the modern European history and relevant Western political concepts, he became convinced that it would be a better idea to save China by launching a political revolution.1 With his mind more or less set, Liang made his first step by circulating revolutionary ideas in an academy he founded with friends in the Hunan 湖 南 province in 1897.2 One year later, Liang and his mentor Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858-1927), a staunch supporter for reform, were received by Emperor Guangxu 光緒 (1875-1908) under a rather unexpected circumstance. With the throne’s support, the revolutionary-minded Liang, fortunately or unfortunately, was granted the once-in-a-lifetime chance of leading a nation-wide reformist movement with his mentor. Three months later the reform was pre-maturely crushed by Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧 (1835-1908). Kang Youwei fled to Hong Kong, and Liang began to spend his long exile years in Japan. In Japan, Liang launched the bi-weekly journal The China Discussion (清議報 Qingyi bao) (1898-1901). Apart from going on emphasizing the need to implement constitutional monarchy in China, the young “reformer,” who was then nationally famous, carefully coated his 1 For a summary on Liang Qichao’s support for the revolution before 1897, see Zhang Pengyuan’s Liang Qichao yu qingji geming 梁啟超與清季革命(Liang Qichao and the Qing revolution) (Shanghai: Sanlian shudian, 2013), 31- 78. (The book was published originally by Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo in 1982, in Taipei). 2 See Yijiao congbian 翼教叢編 (A general collection to protect the faith), edited by Su Yu 蘇輿 (Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1971). 1 some of his revolutionary agenda in “reformist” languages. These proposals, though not without contradictions, were warmly embraced by his contemporaries across the strait.