ICS Lecture: Keren He, "Revolutionizing Evolution: The Politics of Suicide Bombing in Late Qing China"

November 9, 2017

4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Psychology Building 0010 (1835 Neil Ave)

Add to Calendar 2017-11-09 17:00:00 2017-11-09 18:30:00 ICS Lecture: Keren He, "Revolutionizing Evolution: The Politics of Suicide Bombing in Late Qing China" The Institute for Chinese Studies presents the Re-Imagining China's Past and Present Lecture Series:Keren HeVisiting Assistant Professor in Chinese Language, Culture, and SocietyOberlin College "Revolutionizing Evolution: The Politics of Suicide Bombing in Late Qing China"Flyer: Keren He Flyer.pdfAbstract: The last decade of the Qing Dynasty witnessed China’s uneasy transition from an empire to a modern republic, a transition marked by an upswing in assassination activities conducted by anti-Qing revolutionaries. So pervasive were these individual acts of violence that one contemporary dubbed his time as “the age of assassination.” This presentation will explore the spiritual motivations of political radicalism by examining the case of Wu Yue (1878-1905), the first Chinese suicide bomber who attempted to assassinate members of a Qing diplomatic mission. In contrast to existing studies that view late Qing assassinations as political acts driven by anti-Manchu sentiments, I argue that Wu was motivated by a desire to rewrite the dominant discourse of social evolution. Ideologically opposed to the Spencerian model, which casts individual self-assertion as the evolutionary engine of the nation, Wu imagined an alternative evolution fueled by the spiritual power of self-destruction. His legacy proved to be a double-edged sword for the Chinese revolution in the long twentieth century: as figures across the political spectrum were possessed by the spiritual power championed by Wu, the goal of spiritual evolution was used to both legitimize and challenge the agenda of state-building.Bio: Keren He is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Chinese Language, Culture, and Society at Oberlin College. Her research focuses on the registers of spirituality in Chinese political and intellectual life. She is currently working on a book manuscript, “Death on a Pedestal: Political Suicide in China, 1898-1937,” which examines voluntary death as a symptom of spiritual crisis in China’s transformation toward a modern secular society.Free and open to the publicThis event is made possible by OSU's Department of East Asian Languages and Literatrues and by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center. Psychology Building 0010 (1835 Neil Ave) OSU ASC Drupal 8 ascwebservices@osu.edu America/New_York public

2017-11-09 16:00:00 2017-11-09 17:30:00 ICS Lecture: Keren He, "Revolutionizing Evolution: The Politics of Suicide Bombing in Late Qing China" The Institute for Chinese Studies presents the Re-Imagining China's Past and Present Lecture Series:Keren HeVisiting Assistant Professor in Chinese Language, Culture, and SocietyOberlin College "Revolutionizing Evolution: The Politics of Suicide Bombing in Late Qing China"Flyer: Keren He Flyer.pdfAbstract: The last decade of the Qing Dynasty witnessed China’s uneasy transition from an empire to a modern republic, a transition marked by an upswing in assassination activities conducted by anti-Qing revolutionaries. So pervasive were these individual acts of violence that one contemporary dubbed his time as “the age of assassination.” This presentation will explore the spiritual motivations of political radicalism by examining the case of Wu Yue (1878-1905), the first Chinese suicide bomber who attempted to assassinate members of a Qing diplomatic mission. In contrast to existing studies that view late Qing assassinations as political acts driven by anti-Manchu sentiments, I argue that Wu was motivated by a desire to rewrite the dominant discourse of social evolution. Ideologically opposed to the Spencerian model, which casts individual self-assertion as the evolutionary engine of the nation, Wu imagined an alternative evolution fueled by the spiritual power of self-destruction. His legacy proved to be a double-edged sword for the Chinese revolution in the long twentieth century: as figures across the political spectrum were possessed by the spiritual power championed by Wu, the goal of spiritual evolution was used to both legitimize and challenge the agenda of state-building.Bio: Keren He is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Chinese Language, Culture, and Society at Oberlin College. Her research focuses on the registers of spirituality in Chinese political and intellectual life. She is currently working on a book manuscript, “Death on a Pedestal: Political Suicide in China, 1898-1937,” which examines voluntary death as a symptom of spiritual crisis in China’s transformation toward a modern secular society.Free and open to the publicThis event is made possible by OSU's Department of East Asian Languages and Literatrues and by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.    Psychology Building 0010 (1835 Neil Ave) America/New_York public

The Institute for Chinese Studies presents the Re-Imagining China's Past and Present Lecture Series:

Keren He
Visiting Assistant Professor in Chinese Language, Culture, and Society
Oberlin College

"Revolutionizing Evolution: The Politics of Suicide Bombing in Late Qing China"

Flyer: Keren He Flyer.pdf

Abstract: The last decade of the Qing Dynasty witnessed China’s uneasy transition from an empire to a modern republic, a transition marked by an upswing in assassination activities conducted by anti-Qing revolutionaries. So pervasive were these individual acts of violence that one contemporary dubbed his time as “the age of assassination.” This presentation will explore the spiritual motivations of political radicalism by examining the case of Wu Yue (1878-1905), the first Chinese suicide bomber who attempted to assassinate members of a Qing diplomatic mission. In contrast to existing studies that view late Qing assassinations as political acts driven by anti-Manchu sentiments, I argue that Wu was motivated by a desire to rewrite the dominant discourse of social evolution. Ideologically opposed to the Spencerian model, which casts individual self-assertion as the evolutionary engine of the nation, Wu imagined an alternative evolution fueled by the spiritual power of self-destruction. His legacy proved to be a double-edged sword for the Chinese revolution in the long twentieth century: as figures across the political spectrum were possessed by the spiritual power championed by Wu, the goal of spiritual evolution was used to both legitimize and challenge the agenda of state-building.

Bio: Keren He is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Chinese Language, Culture, and Society at Oberlin College. Her research focuses on the registers of spirituality in Chinese political and intellectual life. She is currently working on a book manuscript, “Death on a Pedestal: Political Suicide in China, 1898-1937,” which examines voluntary death as a symptom of spiritual crisis in China’s transformation toward a modern secular society.

Free and open to the public

This event is made possible by OSU's Department of East Asian Languages and Literatrues and by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.