Abstract

Professor Qian Suoqiao

Chair of Chinese Studies

Newcastle University, UK

Hu Shi and Lin Yutang: Two Liberal Paths for Modern China

At the turn of the new century, the Chinese intellectual world witnessed a series of challenges to the unquestionable authority of Lu Xun as well as re-appreciation of Hu Shi in contemporary Chinese intellectual life. Both Hu Shi and Lu Xun were pioneering leaders of the New Culture Movement, and as such they will remain two pillars of Chinese modernity. In terms of intellectual disposition, Lin Yutang’s works and life practices offer a different trajectory that both engages those of Hu Shi and Lu Xun and yet points to a renewed paradigm for Chinese modernity. A biographical study of Lin’s life and works is also a look into the possibilities of resetting the search for a “new civilization” for China and the world. Much closer to Hu Shi rather than to Lu Xun, Lin Yutang’s literary practices inherit the liberal path for modern China opened up by Hu Shi but divert from it in certain key aspects, particularly in terms of the critique of colonialism and imperialism, and the critical attitude toward tradition. After an overview of the intellectual dispositions of Hu Shi and Lin Yutang in modern Chinese intellectual life, the lecture will highlight the cultural and political affinities and diversions between Hu Shi and Lin Yutang in the 1920s China over two events: the national learning (guoxue) debate and Tagore’s China visit.