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November 7, 2017 Lecture: Speaking with the Silent Majority: the Rise of Grassroots Intellectuals."

The lecture of Prof. Sebastian Veg (SHSS Paris) will take place in the seminar room in Erbprinzenstraße 12 and begins at 18:15.

An abstract of the lecture follows:

 
"Whereas, throughout the 20th century, intellectuals in China defined
themselves through a posture of responsibility for the affairs of the
nation and the state (“taking the world under the heavens as one’s
responsibility”), in the last twenty years, positions have become more
diverse and more complex. Beginning in the 1990s, intellectuals were no
longer exclusively affiliated with state work units, and their income
sources became more diverse. Many began to question the “grand
narratives” of modernization and democracy, which had cemented the
elite consensus over “reform” in the 1980s. Criticizing intellectuals'
traditional elitist bias, they shifted their interests to concrete
problems, often associated with people situated not at the center but
at the margins of society, famously described by Wang Xiaobo as the
“silent majority” or “weak groups” (ruoshi qunti). Some of them began
to work for NGOs, or study sensitive topics, or produce documentary
films. As the public sphere broadened to include the internet and
social media, new forms of interventions appeared, along with
alternative spaces. This presentation will attempt to assess the
changes that have taken place and to connect them with several
theoretical questions related to definitions of the intellectual and of
the public sphere."
Kontakt

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Institut für Sinologie
Werthmannstraße 12
D-79098 Freiburg i. Br.

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