Behind the gate : inventing students in Beijing / Fabio Lanza.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lanza, Fabio, 1967-

Series:

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beijing da xue--Students--Political activity.

Beijing da xue.

Beijing da xue--History--20th century.

Higher education and state--China--History--20th century.

Higher education and state.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 299 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

On May 4, 1919, thousands of students protested the Versailles treaty in Beijing. Seventy years later, another generation demonstrated in Tiananmen Square. Climbing the Monument of the People's Heroes, these protestors stood against a relief of their predecessors, merging with their own mythology while consciously deploying their activism. Through an investigation of twentieth-century Chinese student protest, Fabio Lanza considers the marriage of the cultural and the political, the intellectual and the "idian, that occurred during the May Fourth movement, along with its rearticulation in subsequent protest. He ultimately explores the political category of the "student" and its making in the twentieth century.Lanza returns to the May Fourth period (1917-1923) and the rise of student activism in and around Beijing University. He revisits reform in pedagogical and learning routines, changes in daily campus life, the fluid relationship between the city and its residents, and the actions of allegedly cultural student organizations. Through a careful analysis of everyday life and urban space, Lanza radically reconceptualizes the emergence of political subjectivities (categories such as "worker," "activist," and "student") and how they anchor and inform political action. He accounts for the elements that drew students to Tiananmen and the formation of the student as an enduring political category. His research underscores how, during a time of crisis, the lived realities of university and student became unsettled in Beijing, and how political militancy in China arose only when the boundaries of identification were challenged.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

PART I: LIVED SPACE

1. Through the Walls: Everyday Life in the University

2. Untrained Bodies and Frugal Habits

PART II: INTELLECTUAL SPACE

3. The Displacement of Learning

PART III: POLITICAL SPACE

4. Learning Politics

5. Improper Places

PART IV: SOCIAL SPACE

6. Between Streets and Monuments

7. The Pedagogy of the City

EPILOGUE

8. The End of Students?

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780231526289

0231526288

OCLC:

829462161