Xu Jilin 许纪霖 b.1957

Xu Jilin, professor of history at East China Normal University, is a historian of 20th Century Chinese thought and culture. His research focuses on Chinese modern history of thoughts and intellectuals of China in the 20th century, culture and thoughts of contemporary China, and the culture of Shanghai.

Journal Articles

  • Xu, Jilin. “Anti-Occidentalism does not equal modern.” Chinese Law and Government. 30.6 (Nov-Dec 1997): 43-50.
  • Xu, Jilin. “Historical Memories of May Fourth: Patriotism, but of what kind?.” Trans.  Duncan M. Campbell. China Heritage Quarterly (Mar 2009)
  • Xu, Jilin., and Barmé, Geremie R. “The fate of an enlightenment: twenty years in the Chinese intellectual sphere (1978-98).” Trans. Davies, Gloria. East Asian History. 20 (Dec 2000): 169-186.
  • Xu, Jilin. “ What future for public intellectuals? The specialisation of knowledge, the commercialisation of culture and the emergence of post-modernism characterise China in the 1990s.” Trans. Black, Michael. China Perspectives. 52 (Mar-Apr 2004): 16-30.
  • Xu, Jilin. “The making of a true athletic superpower.” Trans. Carrico, Kevin. China Rights Forum. 3 (2007): 32-33.
  • Xu, Jilin. “The urban ‘cultural nexus of power’: intellectual elites in Shanghai and Beijing, 1900-1937.” Hill, Joshua. Frontiers of History in China 9.1 (Mar 2014): 32-55.
  • Xu, Jilin. “Quelles possibilités pour les intellectuels engagés? Spécialisation des connaissances, commercialisation de la culture et apparition du post-modernisme caractérisent la Chine des années 1990.” Merle, Aurore. Perspectives chinoises 81 (Jan-Feb 2004): 16-31.
  • Xu, Jilin. “Social Darwinism in modern China.” Trans. Xiao, Zhiwei. Journal of Modern Chinese History 2 (Dec 2012): 182-197.

Collections and Book Chapters

  • Xu, Jilin. “Public sphere in neoteric China: forms, functions and self-understandings: a case study of Shanghai.” State and civil society: the Chinese perspective (Series on developing China: translated research from China, vol.2). Deng, Zhenglai. Singapore; Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific, 2011. 241-270.
  • Xu, Jilin. “Reforming Peking University: a window into deliberative democracy.” The search for deliberative democracy in China. Eds. Leib, Ethan J.; He, Baogang. New York; Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire:Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 245-257.
  • Xu, Jilin., et al. “In search of a ‘third way’: a conversation regarding ‘liberalism’ and the ‘new left wing’.” Trans. Barmé, Geremie. Voicing concerns: contemporary Chinese critical inquiry. Ed. Davies, Gloria. Lanham, Md.; Oxford, England: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. 199-226.
  • Xu, Jilin., and Barmé, Geremie R. “The fate of an enlightenment: twenty years in the Chinese intellectual sphere (1978-98).” Trans. Davies, Gloria. Chinese intellectuals between state and market. Gu, Edward; Goldman, Merle. London; New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. 183-203.
  • Xu, Jilin. “Contradictions within enlightenment ideas.” Trans. Thieret, Adrian. Culture and social transformations in reform era China (Ideas, history, and modern China, v.2). Eds. Cao, Tian Yu; Zhong, Xueping; Liao, Kebin. Leiden, The Netherlands; Boston, Mass.: Brill, 2010. 197-234.

Translations on Web Sources

Studies by Others

  • Cheek, Timothy. “Xu Jilin and the thought work of China’s public intellectuals.” China Quarterly. 186 (Jun 2006): 401-420.

This article takes recent theoretical essays by Shanghai scholar and public intellectual, Xu Jilin, and other scholars of the history of thought and culture (sixiang wenhua shi) as a case study of efforts by intellectuals in the People’s Republic of China to define and promote a role as public intellectuals separate from the party-state.

Blogs

Column/Archives of Chinese articles: