Political Trajectories in China and Taiwan

This research seminar is offered both to MA and Ph.D. students. It focuses on the political and ideological appropriations of Confucianism (and, to a lesser extent, Legalism) in China and Taiwan during the 20th and 21st centuries. The objective will be to explore the history of forms of political and cultural conservatism enduring throughout this long period of time. The topics that will be covered include some specific political experiences that took place in the fragmented Chinese territory during the Republican era, the relationship between various polities and religious groups, the instrumental use of “traditional culture” in Taiwan under both the Japanese rule and the Chiang Kai-shek regime, the sinicization of Marxism and recent developments in Mainland China. This seminar is at the junction of several disciplinary fields: history (intellectual, political, religious) and social sciences (mainly sociology, anthropology). It is directly linked to a research program carried out within the French Research Institute on East Asia (IFRAE, UMR 8043, Inalco, Université Paris Cité, CNRS). It is given in English within the framework of the Paris Graduate School of East Asian Studies, a new program launched by Université Paris Cité and its partner institutions. 

Students should be able to read scholarly material in Chinese, in English and in French and to make presentations in English.