Self-Development Ethics and Politics in China Today
Gil Hizi (ed.)
- Title
- Self-Development Ethics and Politics in China Today
- Subtitle
- A Keyword Approach
- Editor
- Gil Hizi
- Price
- € 135,99
- ISBN
- 9789048557493
- Format
- eBook PDF (Adobe DRM)
- Number of pages
- 314
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 29 - 07 - 2024
- Dimensions
- 15.6 x 23.4 cm
- Discipline
- Asian Studies
- Also available as
- Hardback - € 136,00
Contributors
Editor Acknowledgements
Introduction by Gil Hizi
Part I: Developmentalist Thinking
1. Luohou (lagging-behind) and the impetus of self-improvement by Marius Meinhof
2. Fendou (struggle), self-help and Chinese modernity by Marco Fumian
3. Optimizing Individual Desires: Mengxiang (dreams) and entrepreneurship in Chinese Universities by Naja Morell Hjortshøj
Part II: Transformative Frameworks
4. Qingxu shifang (emotional release) in psychotherapeutic learning by Anna Iskra
5. ’You've Got to Have Core Muscles’: Duanlian (exercise) and the disciplining of body and self among white-collar women by Xinyan Peng
6. Jiaohua (education for transformation) and self-refashioning in Chinese individuals’ Confucian learning by Canglong Wang
Part III: Empowering Ingredients
7. To have nengli (ability) when lacking xueli (educational knowledge): Striving for success through craftiness in rural China by Liisa Kohonen
8. The Desire to Help: Aixin (loving heart) and self-development in China by Dan Wu and Yang Zhan
9. Learning to xinshang (appreciate): Young adults’ pursuit of non-standardized sensibilities by Gil Hizi
10. Between Fatalism and Voluntarism: The Concept of yuanfen (Fated Chance) and its Role for Young Adults' Psychosocial Adjustment in Contemporary China by Isabel Heger-Laube
Part IV: Disillusionment
11. The inescapability of neijuan (involution) by Linda Qian and Barclay Bram
12. Tangping (lying flat) among young adults: Shameful, courageous, or just fleeting resistance? by Mieke Matthyssen
13. Epilogue: The politics of arrested self-development by Jiwei Ci
Bibliography
Index
Editor Acknowledgements
Introduction by Gil Hizi
Part I: Developmentalist Thinking
1. Luohou (lagging-behind) and the impetus of self-improvement by Marius Meinhof
2. Fendou (struggle), self-help and Chinese modernity by Marco Fumian
3. Optimizing Individual Desires: Mengxiang (dreams) and entrepreneurship in Chinese Universities by Naja Morell Hjortshøj
Part II: Transformative Frameworks
4. Qingxu shifang (emotional release) in psychotherapeutic learning by Anna Iskra
5. ’You've Got to Have Core Muscles’: Duanlian (exercise) and the disciplining of body and self among white-collar women by Xinyan Peng
6. Jiaohua (education for transformation) and self-refashioning in Chinese individuals’ Confucian learning by Canglong Wang
Part III: Empowering Ingredients
7. To have nengli (ability) when lacking xueli (educational knowledge): Striving for success through craftiness in rural China by Liisa Kohonen
8. The Desire to Help: Aixin (loving heart) and self-development in China by Dan Wu and Yang Zhan
9. Learning to xinshang (appreciate): Young adults’ pursuit of non-standardized sensibilities by Gil Hizi
10. Between Fatalism and Voluntarism: The Concept of yuanfen (Fated Chance) and its Role for Young Adults' Psychosocial Adjustment in Contemporary China by Isabel Heger-Laube
Part IV: Disillusionment
11. The inescapability of neijuan (involution) by Linda Qian and Barclay Bram
12. Tangping (lying flat) among young adults: Shameful, courageous, or just fleeting resistance? by Mieke Matthyssen
13. Epilogue: The politics of arrested self-development by Jiwei Ci
Bibliography
Index
Gil Hizi (ed.)
Self-Development Ethics and Politics in China Today
A Keyword Approach
This volume takes readers on a journey into a central aspect of life in China, so-called “self-development.” Whether prompted by the cultural values of educational success, capitalist competition for wealth, or the Chinese Communist Party’s prescriptions for “good” citizenship, few people in China are immune to the impetus to “improve” themselves and thus bring about a better future. Contributors to this volume, interdisciplinary sinologists, draw on materials from practices in education, labor, and self-help as they spotlight “keywords” by which individuals make sense of their self-development journeys – including new forms of resistance to social norms. Rather than simply classify self-development by different activities or groups, the chapters map together ethical features that cut across Chinese society. Contributors explore the nuanced and ambivalent attitudes towards self-development of individuals navigating various requirements and pursuing more complete forms of existence. In so doing, they offer a snapshot of China that intersects with timely global concerns.
Editor
Gil Hizi
Gil Hizi is a postdoctoral fellow at the Goethe University Frankfurt
