Research

Dissertation

Darwin Goes East: Evolutionism and Imperialism in the Formation of Modern Chinese Political Thought

This project explores the circulation and transformation of social Darwinian ideas between England and China and their entanglement with imperialism, racism, and revolution at the turn of the twentieth century. Theoretically, I challenge the conventional alliance of social Darwinism and Euro-American imperialism in the history of political thought and instead conceptualize Darwinism as an ideologically elastic world view that involves innovative interpretations and enables anti-imperial struggles in global contexts. Substantively, I investigate the works of Herbert Spencer, Thomas Huxley, and Benjamin Kidd and their political and discursive influence in China via the translational and interpretive efforts of Yan Fu, Zhang Taiyan, Liang Qichao, and other Chinese intellectuals. Methodologically, this project instantiates a transnational approach to political theory that foregrounds the travel and traction of ideas across national and cultural boundary as a transformative process.

Working Papers

“Reconfiguring the Color Line: The Paradoxical Discourse of Race in Zou Rong’s Revolutionary Army” (R&R)

“Surviving Imperialism(s): Social Darwinism as Anti-Imperial Discourse in Modern Chinese Political Thought” (Draft available)