The Origins Of Modern Chinese "humanism": The Translation Of The Word-center Study (1901-1922)

My dissertation focuses on the formation of the concept renwen zhuyi (humanism) in Modern China. Rather than tracing the origin of the idea according to the acknowledged definition of humanism, I argue that, examining the various Chinese equivalents of humanism in modern China and their implications will deepen our understanding of humanism in the Chinese context. The term humanism can be taken both historically and ideologically. The historical humanism has a close relation with the interpretation of Renaissance, and the ideological one is much more universal, covering all the aspects of the essence of man and all human conditions. Humanism first entered the sight of the Chinese intellectuals with a historical perspective at the beginning of the 20th century. As far as we know, the Chinese readers might be introduced to the term humanism through the 1901 book Ouluoba Tongshi.The first chapter delineates how the Chinese intellectuals understood the western Renaissance culture before the 20th century. It is periodized into the Ming Qing Transition and the late Qing period. The second chapter intensively discusses the image of western Renaissance in early 20th century China and the intellectuals' understanding of humanism. So far, the earliest appearance of the term renwen zhuyi was detected in the 1908 Japanese-Chinese dictionary. And the third chapter tackles the changes in the discourse of western Renaissance in the 1910s and its influence on the discourse of humanism. The fourth chapter studies the various translations of humanism before 1922, with a focus on the different representations of humanism and humanitarianism in Chinese context. The last chapter takes a close look at the Xueheng School's interpretation of humanism and directs the study into the future research agenda of the invention of the Chinese Humanism.