Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T18:58:49.304Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Professors as Intellectuals in China: Political Identities and Roles in a Provincial University

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2016

Zhidong Hao  and
Zhengyang Guo
Zhidong Hao*
Affiliation:
Department of sociology, University of Macau.
Zhengyang Guo
Affiliation:
Shanxi University and University of Macau.
*
Email: zdhao@umac.mo (corresponding author).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Under Xi Jinping's administration, ideological control in China has been tightened and political dissent has become increasingly difficult, especially in universities. What can professors do? Our research in one university in central China finds that professors have multifaceted identities and engage in synchronous political roles as establishment/organic, non-establishment/professional and contra-establishment/critical intellectuals, although most take on the first two roles. Our research is based on 36 interviews with professors, students and administrators from various departments of this provincial university and on an analysis of the faculty's teaching and research. This paper aims to contribute to the sociology of intellectuals and higher education by illuminating how professors, as intellectuals, engage in contemporary Chinese political discourse.

摘要

今天的中国已经进入了习近平时代, 意识形态的控制在进一步加强, 政治异议, 尤其是大学里的政治异议, 变得越来越艰难。在这种情况下, 作为知识分子的教授们能够做什么呢? 本文探讨中国中部地区的一所大学的情况。我们发现教授们有多重认同, 并同时扮演不同的政治角色, 包括体制“内”/有机角色、体制“外”/专业角色、“非”体制/批判角色 (具体定义请看内文)。多数人、多数情况下在扮演着前两种角色。我们的研究建立在对内地一所省属大学来自不同单位的 36 位教授、学生与行政领导的访谈以及对教授们的教学和研究的分析之上。希望我们的研究能够帮助人们理解作为知识分子的教授们是否以及如何与当代中国的政治对话。也希望本文能对知识分子社会学、高等教育社会学有所贡献。

Keywords

professorspolitical rolesChinasociology of higher educationsociology of intellectuals and professionals教授政治角色中国高等教育社会学知识分子与专业人士社会学
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 228 , December 2016 , pp. 1039 - 1060
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barmé, Geremie R., and Davies, Gloria. 2004. “Have we been noticed yet? Intellectual contestation and the Chinese web.” In Gu, Edward and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market. London: Routledge Curzon, 75–108.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of A Theory of Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callahan, William A. 2013. China Dreams: 20 Visions of the Future. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Callahan, William A. 2014. “Citizen Ai: warrior, jester, and middleman.” The Journal of Asian Studies 73(04), 899–920.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheek, Timothy. 1997. Propaganda and Culture in Mao's China: Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cheek, Timothy. 2006. “Xu Jilin and the thought work of China's public intellectuals.” The China Quarterly 186, 401–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheek, Timothy. 2007. “Historians as public intellectuals in contemporary China.” In Gu, Edward and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market. London: Routledge Curzon, 204–222.Google Scholar
Cheek, Timothy. 2014. “Citizen intellectuals in historical perspective: reflections on Callahan's ‘Citizen Ai’.” The Journal of Asian Studies 73, 921–925, DOI: 10.1017/S0021911814001016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Ji. 2015. “Du bao: Nanfang baoxi xin qidian shang zai fali” (Reading newspapers: South Media Group is getting a new start with a forceful push), Xinhua News Net, 16 September, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-09/04/c_1116460987.htm. Accessed 27 September 2016.Google Scholar
Chen, Xi. 2013. “Mingjing yuekan du jia quan wen kanfa Zhonggong 9 hao wenjian” (Mirror Monthly publishes Document No. 9 in its totality), Molihua.org, 22 September, http://www.molihua.org/2013/08/9_7925.html. Accessed 27 September 2016.Google Scholar
Davies, Gloria (ed.). 2001. Voicing Concerns: Contemporary Chinese Critical Inquiry. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Davies, Gloria. 2007. Worrying about China: The Language of Chinese Critical Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Du, Shengyan. 2016. “Zhongguo gaodeng jiaoyu zhidu de lishi, xianzhuang jiqi gaige luxian tu” (The history, status quo, and reform challenges in China's higher education). In Hao, Zhidong (ed.), Yaowang xingkong: Zhongguo zhengzhi tizhi gaige de kunjing yu chulu (Look Up at the Star-studded Sky: Dilemmas and Prospects for China's Political Reform) . Taipei: Zhi xing chubanshe.Google Scholar
Evasdottir, Erika E.S. 2004. Obedient Autonomy: Chinese Intellectuals and the Achievement of Orderly Life. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Fewsmith, Joseph. 2001. China since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frenkiel, Emilie. 2015. Conditional Democracy: The Contemporary Debate on Political Reform in Chinese Universities. Colchester: ECPR Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1971. Capitalism and Modern Social Theory: An Analysis of the Writings of Marx, Durkheim, and Max Weber. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Merle. 1981. China's Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, Merle. 1994. Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China: Political Reform in the Deng Xiaoping Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, Merle. 1996. “Politically-engaged intellectuals in the Deng–Jiang era: a changing relationship with the party-state.” The China Quarterly 145, 35–52.Google Scholar
Goldman, Merle. 1999. “Politically-engaged intellectuals in the 1990s.” The China Quarterly 159, 700–711.Google Scholar
Goldman, Merle, and Cheek, Timothy. 1987. “Introduction: uncertain change.” In Goldman, Merle, Cheek, Timothy and Hamrin, Carol Lee (eds.), China's Intellectuals and the State: In Search of a New Relationship. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1–20.Google Scholar
Gouldner, Alvin. 1979. The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. New York: Seabury Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (trans.)). New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
Gu, Edward. 2004. “Social capital, institutional change and the development of non-governmental intellectual organizations in China.” In Gu, Edward and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market. London: Routledge Curzon, 21–42.Google Scholar
Gu, Edward, and Goldman, Merle. 2004. “Introduction: the transformation of the relationship between Chinese intellectuals and the state.” In Gu, Edward and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market. London: Routledge Curzon, 1–17.Google Scholar
Hamrin, Carol Lee, and Cheek, Timothy (eds.). 1986. China's Establishment Intellectuals. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Hao, Zhidong. 2003. Intellectuals at a Crossroads: The Changing Politics of China's Knowledge Workers. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Hao, Zhidong. 2015. “Commercialization and corporatization vs. professorial roles and academic freedom in the US and greater China.” Chinese Sociological Review 47(2), 103–127.Google Scholar
Hao, Zhidong. 2016. “In search of a professional identity: higher education in Macau and the academic role of faculty.” Higher Education, DOI: 10.1007/s10734-015-9940-4.Google Scholar
He, Baogang. 2004. “Chinese intellectuals facing the challenge of the new century.” In Gu, Edward and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market. London: Routledge Curzon, 263–279.Google Scholar
Hefei University of Technology. 2014. “Guanyu zuohao 2014 niandu guojia sheke jijin zhongda xiangmu (di er pi) zhaobiao gongzuo de tongzhi” (Call for proposals on national social science research funding for important topics 2014 – second batch), 24 September, http://kyy.hfut.edu.cn/?action=article&ts=look&id=791. Accessed 27 September 2016.Google Scholar
Hu, Angang. 2013a. “Renmin shehui youyu gongmin shehui” (People's society is better than civil society), People's Daily (Overseas Edition), 19 July.Google Scholar
Hu, Angang. 2013b. “Zhongguo jiti lingdao bei zhengming juyou juda youyue xing” (China's collective leadership is proven to have great advantages), Huanqiu shibao, 16 August.Google Scholar
Jiang, Xun. 2015. “ Yanhuang chunqiu zongbian bei ci zhi beihou” (Behind the forced retirement of the chief editor of Yanhuang chunqiu), Yazhou zhoukan 29(33), 23 August.Google Scholar
Kelly, David. 2006. “Citizen movements and China's public intellectuals in the Hu–Wen era.” Pacific Affairs 79(2), 183–204.Google Scholar
Li, Shenming. 2013a. “Meiguo shi de xifang minzhu meiyou pushi xing” (American Western-style democracy is not universal), Zhejiang Daily, 30 March.Google Scholar
Li, Shenming. 2013b. “Zhengque pingjia gaige kaifang qian hou liangge lishi shiqi” (Correct estimation of the two periods before and after the reform), Hongqi wengao, issue 9, 13 May.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour M., and Basu, Asoke. 1976. “The roles of the intellectual and political roles.” In Gella, Aleksander (ed.), The Intelligentsia and the Intellectuals: Theory, Method and Case Study. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 111–150.Google Scholar
Mazur, Mary (Zimei, Ma). 1996. Shidai zhi zi: Wu Han (A Man of His Time: Wu Han the Historian) . Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Ministry of Education. 2014. “Guanyu 2014 niandu jiaoyu bu zhexue shehui kexue yanjiu zhongda keti gong guan xiangmu zhaobiao gongzuo de tongzhi” (Ministry of Education's 2014 call for proposals on important and tough research topics in philosophy and social sciences), 24 September, http://www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A13/A13_gggs/A13_sjhj/201402/t20140221_164237.html. Accessed 27 September 2016.Google Scholar
Ogden, Suzanne. 2004. “From patronage to profits: the changing relationship of Chinese intellectuals with the party-state.” In Gu, Edward and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market. London: Routledge Curzon, 111–137.Google Scholar
Parsons, Talcott. 1964. Essays in Sociological Theory (revised edition). New York. The Free Press.Google Scholar
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Think-Tank Research Center. 2014. 2013 nian Zhongguo zhiku baogao: yingxiang li paiming yu zhengce jianyi (2013 Report on China's Think-tanks: Influence, Rankings and Policy Suggestions) . Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.Google Scholar
Small, Mario Luis. 2009. “‘How many cases do I need?’ On science and the logic of case selection in field-based research.” Ethnography 10(1), 5–38.Google Scholar
Svensson, Marina. 2014. “Voice, power and connectivity in China's microblogosphere: digital divides on SinaWeibo.” China Information 28(2), 168–188.Google Scholar
Tatlow, Didi Kirsten. 2015. “Teasing out Ai Weiwei's end game, after China lifts a travel ban,” The New York Times, 13 August.Google Scholar
U, Eddy. 2007. “The making of Chinese intellectuals: representations and organization in the thought reform campaign.” The China Quarterly 192, 971–989.Google Scholar
U, Eddy. 2009. “Reification of the Chinese intellectual: on the origins of the CCP concept of z hishifenzi .” Modern China 35(6), 604–631.Google Scholar
U, Eddy. 2013. “Reifications of the intellectual: representations, organization and agency in revolutionary China.” The British Journal of Sociology 64(4), 617–642.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weber, Max. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Gerth, H.H. and Right Mills, C. (eds., trans.)). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1973. Max Weber on Universities: The Power of the State and the Dignity of the Academic Calling in Imperial Germany (Shils, Edward (trans., ed.)). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wright, Teresa. 2004. “Intellectuals and the politics of protest: the case of the China Democracy Party.” In Gu, Edward and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market. London: Routledge Curzon, 158–180.Google Scholar
Wu, Qing. 2015. “Gaobie ‘jiaodian fangtan’ wo chuangye le, linbie le youxie zhenhua xiang shuo” (Say goodbye to Focus Interviews and I'm starting something new, but before I leave I have some heart-felt words to tell you about), iHeima website, 11 September, http://www.iheima.com/news/2015/0911/151933.shtml. Accessed 19 September 2015.Google Scholar
X University of Technology. 2014. “Guanyu kaizhan 2014 niandu Shanxi sheng zhexue shehui kexue guihua keti shenqing baogao de tongzhi” (Call for proposals on 2014 Shanxi province philosophy and social sciences research topics), 24 September.Google Scholar
Xu, Jilin. 2003a. Zhongguo zhishifenzi shilun (Ten Questions on China's Intellectuals) . Shanghai: Fudan University Press.Google Scholar
Xu, Jilin. 2003b. “Cong teshu zouxiang pubian: zhuanye hua shidai de gonggong zhishifenzi ruhe keneng?” (From the specific to the universal: how can public intellectuals exist in an era of professionalization?). In Jilin, Xu (ed.), Gonggong xing yu zhishifenzi (The Public Nature and Intellectuals) . Jiangsu: People's Press, 28–67.Google Scholar
Yan, Xiaojun. 2014. “Engineering stability: authoritarian political control over university students in post-Deng China.” The China Quarterly 218, 493–513.Google Scholar
Yang, Guobin. 2009. The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Yang, Guobin. 2014. “The return of ideology and the future of Chinese internet policy.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 31(2), 109–113.Google Scholar
Yang, Xiaoqing. 2013. “Xianzheng yu renmin minzhu zhidu zhi bijiao yanjiu” (A study on comparing constitutionalism and people's democracy), Hongqi wengao, issue 10, 21 May.Google Scholar
Yu, Jianrong. 2015. “Bei yuetan rizhi” (A diary of being called into the Party secretary's office and talked to), Boxun News, http://www.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2015/06/201506180627.shtml#.VfmSCX1lamU. Accessed 2 July 2015.Google Scholar
Zhang, Shuguang. 2015. “Guanyu zhanzheng de guojia zeren wenti” (About the state's responsibility for war), The Financial Times (Chinese site), 17 September, http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001063972?full=y. Accessed 27 September 2016.Google Scholar
Zhao, Sile. 2015. “Fu chao: Zhongguo quanli NGO sheng si jie” (Overturned nest: the life and death of China's rights advocacy NGOs), 19 September, https://theinitium.com/article/20150915-mainland-NGO1/. Accessed 27 September 2016.Google Scholar
Zhao, Yuezhi. 2004. “Underdogs, lapdogs and watchdogs: journalists and the public sphere problematic in reforming China.” In Gu, Edward and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market. London: Routledge Curzon, 43–74.Google Scholar
Zhao, Yuezhi. 2008. Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar