Papers by Antonia Finnane
East Asian history, 1995
Translated and introduced by Antonia Finnane 2 This oft-cite d po em is translated in full in A. ... more Translated and introduced by Antonia Finnane 2 This oft-cite d po em is translated in full in A. C. Graham, Poems of the late Tang (H arm on dsw or th, Mddl x: Penguin Books, 1965), p. l23. 3 The trope has been traced in Wei Minghua, "Xi Yangzh ou meng da shiren: Du Mu he tade qiannian fe ngliu meng" [Analysing the Dream of Yangzh ou: the great po et Du Mu and his th ou sand-year er otic dre aml, in Wei Minghua , Yangzhou wenhua tan pian, pp. 109-27.
The Journal of Asian Studies, 2016
With the “consumption turn” in the humanities and the social sciences, a phenomenon evident in En... more With the “consumption turn” in the humanities and the social sciences, a phenomenon evident in English-language scholarship from the 1980s onward, production ceased to command the attention it had once received from historians. A recent (2012) study of the sewing machine in modern Japan by Harvard historian Andrew Gordon demonstrates the effects: what could feasibly have been published under the title “Making Machinists” was instead marketed as “Fabricating Consumers.” What does it mean to talk about consumers in 1950s Japan, a time and place of hard work, thrift, and restraint? For Gordon an important premise was the role of women in the postwar economy. This provides a point of departure from which to explore the ideologies and practices of production and consumption across the Cold War dividing line between “consumerist” and “productionist” regimes in East Asia. The Cold War was a time of sharp differences between the two societies, but also a time of shared preoccupations with p...
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New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities, 2013
On the basis of wedding journeys undertaken by young couples in the early twentieth century, it i... more On the basis of wedding journeys undertaken by young couples in the early twentieth century, it is possible to pose two ideal types of wedding journey. This chapter describes those two types of wedding journey as Model A and Model B. Model A shows the trajectory of the wedding journey undertaken in the course of the Nuptial Rites. Model B shows the trajectory of the civilized wedding journey. Although churches played a formative role in the rise of the civilized wedding, they were accessible to relatively few people. Hotels played an important role in the reconfiguration of Chinese cities in the early twentieth century. Historians of Beijing have drawn attention to the transformation of a number of sites associated with the Forbidden City and its leisure grounds after the fall of the dynasty. These former imperial spaces provided a new context for a range of social activities. Keywords:Chinese cities; civilized wedding; early twentieth century; Nuptial Rites
The Journal of Asian Studies, 1994
Whether china has changed or remained the same is a question of remarkable longevity in the field... more Whether china has changed or remained the same is a question of remarkable longevity in the field of Chinese studies. It is sustained in part by the continuity of certain terms of reference within Chinese culture, from late imperial to contemporary times, together with the maintenance of certain institutions. W. F. J. Jenner has recently identified some of these: the bureaucracy, walls, “dad, mum and the kids,” “severe punishment,” among others (Jenner 1992). In Jenner's analysis, the fact of China being ineluctably Chinese is readily translated into the fact that it has failed the challenge of modernization. The same equation has been made by others: Peyrefitte's “l'empire immobile,” Mabbett's “mirage of modernity,” and Pye's nationalism without modernization all bespeak an understanding of China as not only imprisoned by its past but also, to draw on older views again, as stagnant, mummified, or decaying (Peyrefitte 1993; Mabbett 1985; Pye 1993).
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1993
The convention for introducing biography in the Chinese textual tradition is to identify the subj... more The convention for introducing biography in the Chinese textual tradition is to identify the subject not only by his name but also by his native place. The classic formula used for this purpose is set out in the preface to “The True Story of Ah Q,” in which Lu Xun remarks that “when writing biography, it is the usual practice to begin ‘so-and-so, from such-and-such place’ ” (Lu 1959 [1921]: 93). This formula was adopted in official documents, popular stories, obituaries and tomb epitaphs as well as in formal biographies or biographical notices. There were variations in its form, in which the person was identified as being “native of this place, living in that place” or “originally of this place, now of that place.” But in any event, a man was, and still is, normally identified by both his personal name and the name of his place of origin, just as a woman was usually identified by the names of her father and her husband. The problem for Lu Xun as fictional biographer was that Ah Q...
The China Quarterly, 2005
in the post-mao era china competed successfully for a place in the international trade in textile... more in the post-mao era china competed successfully for a place in the international trade in textiles and apparel, but its economic success has not been matched by recognition of chinese fashion design on the world stage. one reason for this lies in the obstacles posed by the existing hierarchy of fashion capitals, which has proved notoriously difficult to subvert. shanghai may mean fashion in china, but unlike paris, it does not mean that to the world at large. yet the chinese fashion industry is also bedevilled by problems of its own. a high degree of national self-consciousness on the world stage is evident in international fashion shows featuring rather predictable pastiches of chinese culture. it may be the case that state-sponsored nationalism militates against both a more interesting approach to cultural heritage on the part of designers and a more receptive climate for chinese fashion on international catwalks.
Australian Journal of Politics & History, 2008
... Towards the People's Republic of China, 19661982 (St Lucia, 1985); JY Wong, Yeh... more ... Towards the People's Republic of China, 19661982 (St Lucia, 1985); JY Wong, Yeh Ming-ch'en: Viceroy of Linag Kuang 18528 ... 13 Wang Gungwu, Community and Nation: Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese (Sydney, 1981); Ng Chin-Keong, Trade and Society: The ...
The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures, 2019
This article explores a lesser known source of graphic images of male and female figures produced... more This article explores a lesser known source of graphic images of male and female figures produced during the early decades of the People's Republic of China. Propaganda posters, stage performances, and cinema suggest a high level of visibility for women in Mao's China. In contrast, how-to-sew manuals and pattern books, which in Japan, Western countries, and even the Eastern Bloc were dominated by images of women and designs of clothing for them, in China show an overwhelming preponderance of designs for men's clothing, and graphic drawings of the male figure. The main exceptions were privately authored manuals produced in the early 1950s, preceding socialist transformation. The article argues that the associated development of an everyday "regime of invisibility" for women was linked to the development and intensification of the Mao cult, and the obliteration from the emotional (affective) landscape of objects of desire that might rival Mao himself.
This is the English-language version of a conference paper originally published in Chinese in 201... more This is the English-language version of a conference paper originally published in Chinese in 2010. It reflects on the genre of "daily life" history from the perspective of Jacque Gernet's classic, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, arguing that a close-up view of street-life in Yangzhou in the 1840s helps remove the city's history from the shadow of the Taiping Rebellion, allowing the possibility of other futures than the one which befell it.
Some (but far from all) of the material was used for chapters and articles since published elsewhere, most notably “Furnishing the Home in Qing Yangzhou: a Case for Rethinking ‘Consumer Restraint.’” In Living the Good Life: Consumption in the Qing and Ottoman Empires of the Eighteenth, edited by Elif Akcetin and Suraiya Faroqhi, Leiden: Brill, 2017.
This is the English original of the published Chinese-language version. It uses the case study o... more This is the English original of the published Chinese-language version. It uses the case study of a meeting of the Beijing Wenshiguan (“research institute in culture and history") in 1961 to examines the re-learning of history in the PRC. Had these intellectuals and elites from the old society learnt to think about the 1911 revolution within a Marxist framework? Their conclusion about the nature of the 1911 Revolution as a race revolution suggests that their ideological re-moulding had some way to go.
T h e a u t h o r s a r e i n d e b t e d t o Professor Jiang Liangqin for sharing research insig... more T h e a u t h o r s a r e i n d e b t e d t o Professor Jiang Liangqin for sharing research insights and to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Wang Zhengting in bibliometric research.
Drafts by Antonia Finnane
Shidi 史地, 2017
This is the English original of a published Chinese-language article:
Chong Hai lai xin: Yesuhui ... more This is the English original of a published Chinese-language article:
Chong Hai lai xin: Yesuhui dangan zhong de wan Qing Zhongguo difangshi 崇海来信 - 耶稣会档案中的晚清中国地方史 (Letters from Chongming and Haimen: Chinese local history in the Jesuit archives).
In Shidi 史地 , no.1 (2017): 39-53. Rendered into Chinese by MA Xi 马玺 （Xavier Ma).
The fame of letters written by Jesuit missionaries in China is due largely to the significance of those letters as sources of knowledge of China for Europeans in seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This essay introduces unpublished letters from a later period of history, held in the Jesuit Archives in Vanves. The letters selected for this study were written by missionaries active in Chongming and Haimen counties, Jiangsu province, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Through transcription, translation, and interpretative commentary, the essay demonstrates the value of these materials as sources of local history, arguing that the very fact of their “strangeness” helped make the missionaries alert to aspects of daily life that might have been taken for granted by local people.
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Papers by Antonia Finnane
Some (but far from all) of the material was used for chapters and articles since published elsewhere, most notably “Furnishing the Home in Qing Yangzhou: a Case for Rethinking ‘Consumer Restraint.’” In Living the Good Life: Consumption in the Qing and Ottoman Empires of the Eighteenth, edited by Elif Akcetin and Suraiya Faroqhi, Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Drafts by Antonia Finnane
Chong Hai lai xin: Yesuhui dangan zhong de wan Qing Zhongguo difangshi 崇海来信 - 耶稣会档案中的晚清中国地方史 (Letters from Chongming and Haimen: Chinese local history in the Jesuit archives).
In Shidi 史地 , no.1 (2017): 39-53. Rendered into Chinese by MA Xi 马玺 （Xavier Ma).
The fame of letters written by Jesuit missionaries in China is due largely to the significance of those letters as sources of knowledge of China for Europeans in seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This essay introduces unpublished letters from a later period of history, held in the Jesuit Archives in Vanves. The letters selected for this study were written by missionaries active in Chongming and Haimen counties, Jiangsu province, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Through transcription, translation, and interpretative commentary, the essay demonstrates the value of these materials as sources of local history, arguing that the very fact of their “strangeness” helped make the missionaries alert to aspects of daily life that might have been taken for granted by local people.
Some (but far from all) of the material was used for chapters and articles since published elsewhere, most notably “Furnishing the Home in Qing Yangzhou: a Case for Rethinking ‘Consumer Restraint.’” In Living the Good Life: Consumption in the Qing and Ottoman Empires of the Eighteenth, edited by Elif Akcetin and Suraiya Faroqhi, Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Chong Hai lai xin: Yesuhui dangan zhong de wan Qing Zhongguo difangshi 崇海来信 - 耶稣会档案中的晚清中国地方史 (Letters from Chongming and Haimen: Chinese local history in the Jesuit archives).
In Shidi 史地 , no.1 (2017): 39-53. Rendered into Chinese by MA Xi 马玺 （Xavier Ma).
The fame of letters written by Jesuit missionaries in China is due largely to the significance of those letters as sources of knowledge of China for Europeans in seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This essay introduces unpublished letters from a later period of history, held in the Jesuit Archives in Vanves. The letters selected for this study were written by missionaries active in Chongming and Haimen counties, Jiangsu province, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Through transcription, translation, and interpretative commentary, the essay demonstrates the value of these materials as sources of local history, arguing that the very fact of their “strangeness” helped make the missionaries alert to aspects of daily life that might have been taken for granted by local people.