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Disenchanted Democracy: Chinese Cultural Criticism after 1989
Disenchanted Democracy offers a critical mapping of the unknown waters of Chinese cultural criticism in the politically disenchanted 1990s. It focuses on the theoretical debates of post-Tiananmen Chinese intellectuals, relates those debates to the international context of theory and power, and prepares the ground for further discussions on many important theoretical and political issues.
This book breaks new ground in the study of contemporary Chinese intellectual development by allying cultural criticism with a quest for democracy. It approaches democracy, in the context of cultural criticism, less as a series of abstract propositions than as a site or space in which practices of change and good society, pluralism and consensus, knowledge and power, and citizenship and humanity come into sharper focus. Through careful analyses of the 1990s humanist-spirit discussion, new Chinese national studies, and postmodern-postcolonial theory in China, this book reveals how notions of modernity, enlightenment, orientalism, and national and cultural identities are contested in Chinese cultural discussion after 1989.
Disenchanted Democracy will be of interest to students and scholars working on modern and contemporary Chinese cultural and theoretical discourses. An engaging and challenging observation of contemporary Chinese cultural politics, this book will also be welcomed by those who have more general concerns with Chinese society, politics, and intellectuals in the 1990s.
Ben Xu is Associate Professor of English, Saint Mary's College of California. He is also the author of Whither Cultural Criticism, Journey to the Postmodern and the Postcolonial , and Situational Tensions of Thinking through Literary Politics with Edward W. Said and Frank Lentricchia .
This book breaks new ground in the study of contemporary Chinese intellectual development by allying cultural criticism with a quest for democracy. It approaches democracy, in the context of cultural criticism, less as a series of abstract propositions than as a site or space in which practices of change and good society, pluralism and consensus, knowledge and power, and citizenship and humanity come into sharper focus. Through careful analyses of the 1990s humanist-spirit discussion, new Chinese national studies, and postmodern-postcolonial theory in China, this book reveals how notions of modernity, enlightenment, orientalism, and national and cultural identities are contested in Chinese cultural discussion after 1989.
Disenchanted Democracy will be of interest to students and scholars working on modern and contemporary Chinese cultural and theoretical discourses. An engaging and challenging observation of contemporary Chinese cultural politics, this book will also be welcomed by those who have more general concerns with Chinese society, politics, and intellectuals in the 1990s.
Ben Xu is Associate Professor of English, Saint Mary's College of California. He is also the author of Whither Cultural Criticism, Journey to the Postmodern and the Postcolonial , and Situational Tensions of Thinking through Literary Politics with Edward W. Said and Frank Lentricchia .
288 pages, Hardcover
First published December 3, 1999
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July 23, 2025
徐贲老师写作风格非常明显的一本关于90年代中国知识分子的当代思想史著作。亮眼点不多，徐贲老师“旁征博引”写作风格明显，不过能做一番梳理也算是难得，更加上这是一部1999年的作品，做到如此地步也算难得，当得上一个四星。徐贲老师主要梳理了后现代-后殖民主义研究在中国的起源，国学或“保守主义”作为一种“醉翁之意不在酒”的为当权status quo辩护的学问在后天安门时代的兴起等等。在徐贲老师的观点（我同意此观点）中，六四事件作为当代中国知识分子分化的分水岭还是非常可以成立的。不过唯一的缺点就是二十多年年后回头再看，此书的新意实在不多。
徐贲老师在书里也提到某位洋人后现代主义哲学大师是如何评价许多中国后殖民-后现代大师的，里面很有意思的一点就是，与其说许多中国大师与其说是在读萨伊德的东方学，不如说实际上他们读的是文明的冲突。（与其说是在反对“殖民霸权”，实际上还是在说“中华文明和西方文明不可避免的冲突）
徐贲老师在书里也提到某位洋人后现代主义哲学大师是如何评价许多中国后殖民-后现代大师的，里面很有意思的一点就是，与其说许多中国大师与其说是在读萨伊德的东方学，不如说实际上他们读的是文明的冲突。（与其说是在反对“殖民霸权”，实际上还是在说“中华文明和西方文明不可避免的冲突）
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