Work

Dying Against Democracy: Suicide Protest and the 1905 Anti-American Boycott

Público Deposited

Default work thumbnail

For more information on the published version, visit Cambridge University Press's Website.

He, Keren. Dying against Democracy: Suicide Protest and the 1905 Anti-American Boycott. The Journal of Asian Studies 80, no. 4 (2021): 865-888. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/dying-against-democracy-suicide-protest-and-the-1905-antiamerican-boycott/1C462E571D9E5FE328B1F488C8CD1DED

The joint rise of popular movements and mass media in early twentieth-century China gave birth to a democratic imagination, which culminated in the anti-American boycott of 1905. The transnational campaign nonetheless disintegrated as a result of partisan division—an ingrained predicament of democratic agonism that is best illustrated by the story of Feng Xiawei, a grassroots activist whose suicide in Shanghai constituted a key moment in the boycott. Juxtaposing a variety of accounts about Feng's death in journalism, political fiction, reformed opera, and advertisements, this article examines how, together, these texts construct democratic agonism and suicide protest as revealing two opposing political sensibilities as well as modes of action. Instead of expressing only nationalist passion, Feng's suicide reveals a deep anxiety of his time to locate a spiritual source of authority in the face of its glaring absence in social negotiation. This fraught dynamic between the democratic and the transcendent continues to characterize modern Chinese political culture to the present.

Keren He is a professor of East Asian Studies at Dickinson College.


MLA citation style (9th ed.)

He, Keren. Dying Against Democracy: Suicide Protest and the 1905 Anti-american Boycott. . 2021. dickinson.hykucommons.org/concern/generic_works/b4f1f060-b6d7-4c91-913f-a4d6d305d4fb?locale=pt-BR.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

H. Keren. (2021). Dying Against Democracy: Suicide Protest and the 1905 Anti-American Boycott. https://dickinson.hykucommons.org/concern/generic_works/b4f1f060-b6d7-4c91-913f-a4d6d305d4fb?locale=pt-BR

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

He, Keren. Dying Against Democracy: Suicide Protest and the 1905 Anti-American Boycott. 2021. https://dickinson.hykucommons.org/concern/generic_works/b4f1f060-b6d7-4c91-913f-a4d6d305d4fb?locale=pt-BR.

Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

Relações

Em Collection: