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Zhang Shizhao and the Conditions of Novelty Zhang Shizhao and the Conditions of Novelty
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Li Dazhao and the Purpose of History Li Dazhao and the Purpose of History
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A New View on the Past A New View on the Past
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Learning across Time and Space Learning across Time and Space
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Conclusion Conclusion
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8 The Problem of the Culturally Unprecedented: “Old,” “New,” and the Political Tractability of Background Conditions
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Published:October 2015
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Abstract
This chapter examines the debate inaugurated by Zhang Shizhao in the 1920s, when he interrogated the ontological conditions of the “new” culture called for by May Fourth radicals. His insistence on the continuity between past and present was challenged by Zhang Dongsun and Li Dazhao, who interrogated Zhang’s connections between historically situated practices, languages and thought, on the one hand, and the capacity of members of existing communities to engage that material, on the other. At the core of this debate was the question: do existing traditions create communities, whose members then go on to reinterpret tradition in light of unprecedented dilemmas? Or can members of existing communities inaugurate new traditions that efface continuities to existing communities? The debate supplied a number of answers, suggesting the degree to which connections to the past are not transparently given but rather subject to interpretation, debate, and even deliberate reconstruction.
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