| This dissertation considers aspects of the career of the Chinese essayist, Zhou Zuoren (1885-1967), related to his involvement with Japan and Japanese culture. It argues that Zhou's familiarity with and appreciation of Japanese culture represented a level of intellectual and emotional engagement with a foreign culture that was unusual for his time, but that this interest neither supplanted his attachment to Chinese culture nor blinded him to the bane of Japanese imperialism towards China. The study concludes by examining the fate that befell Zhou during the Japanese occupation, when he was branded a traitor for his conduct.; The first chapter describes Zhou's childhood in China, showing how the declining fortunes of his family and nation helped to make him receptive to the influences he encountered as a student in late-Meiji Japan. The second chapter examines the growth of Chinese interest in Japan as a model for modernization and venue for overseas study, and chronicles Zhou's experiences as a student there from 1906-11. Chapter Three follows his emergence as a prominent member of the cultural community in Peking in the May Fourth period, and his efforts to acquaint his contemporaries with modern Japanese culture, especially literature. At a time when many Chinese intellectuals had discarded the Japanese model and turned increasingly to the West and the Soviet Union for inspiration, Zhou continued to argue that China could learn much from the Japanese experience of adaptation and innovation in the creation of a unique modern culture. This chapter examines his writings in this vein, as well as his strong denunciations of Japanese imperialism towards China.; The fourth chapter treats Zhou's life in the 1930s, focusing on his increasingly gloomy ruminations about the nature of Japanese culture and the Japanese mind at a time when Japanese aggression and violence towards China was intensifying. The fifth chapter examines the events that led him to work for the occupation government during the Japanese occupation, his judgment by his contemporaries, and some of the questions that remain about this period of his life. |
