Cultural Creativity in Qing China 1796-1912

这个原创的、跨学科的、国际性的项目将首次进行跨体裁的研究，研究在清朝（1796-1912）漫长的最后一个世纪里，中国文化创造力是如何在异常严重的暴力、政治和社会动荡中表现出非凡的韧性的。我们将研究在一个世纪中，中国的艺术、文学、工艺和技术面临着前所未有的全球影响，这些动荡如何催化了物质文化（包括印刷、绘画、书法、陶瓷、纺织品、建筑和摄影）的创新。1796年是乾隆皇帝统治时期的正式结束，被视为“大清”的结束和漫长危机时期的开始。1912年，末代皇帝溥仪在辛亥革命后退位，结束了大约2000年的王朝统治，为共和国的建立铺平了道路。该研究将探索物质文化如何以独特的方式阐明不断变化的政治和社会身份（特别是在经常被排除在书面记录之外的群体中）和社会许多层面的生活经验，并支持或颠覆文本叙述。它将创新地将博物馆和中国帝国晚期的学术专长结合起来，并将物质和视觉文化与文本历史充分结合起来，通过出版物和大型展览合作进行研究，向不同的观众传达关于晚清统治的新叙述。我们迫切需要通过物质文化的棱镜来重新审视晚清时代，直到最近，晚清主要被定义为一个文化停滞和“国耻”的时代。本项目将以最近的学术研究为基础，建立对19世纪中国创新的新理解，并对中国对战争、技术、城市化、政治认同和外部影响的反应进行详细的视觉描述。这一研究也具有迫切的当代共鸣。本世纪是通往现代后帝国时代的重要桥梁。对19世纪的阐释是当今中国治理、文化和政治合法性的基础。在当代中国，19世纪与西方和日本帝国主义的冲突仍然是公众记忆的前沿。分析人士着眼于帝国晚期，以了解支撑中国当前成功的因素，以及应对持久的政治、经济、社会、民族和环境挑战的战略历史。既然中华人民共和国（PRC）正在国际上重新确立自己的地位，我们需要了解多民族现代中国国家的起源和性质，以了解中华人民共和国正在成为什么样的全球参与者。将基于19世纪原始资料的前沿研究传播给尽可能广泛的受众，对于保持关于中国过去和现在的严谨、基于证据的辩论至关重要。通过学术和公众宣传，该项目将有效地向双方传达这个关键时代的复杂性。除了主要的展览和随附的论文集外，该项目还将通过一个国际会议和编辑的卷来研究中国帝国晚期历史上的重要主题：战争、帝国、本地化和全球化，从而产生持久的影响。提出的问题将有助于塑造下一代的学术。依托全球合作，本研究将促进研究19世纪中国的国际专家与普通受众之间的对话。它将使成熟的和早期的职业学者进行研究，以提高他们的职业生涯，并在亚洲、欧洲和美国的博物馆和大学之间建立牢固的联系。它将突出个人对本世纪挑战和危机的回应，描绘中国社会和景观的多样性经验。

This original, interdisciplinary and international project will conduct the first genre-spanning study of how Chinese cultural creativity during the long final century of the Qing empire (1796-1912) demonstrated extraordinary resilience amid exceptional levels of violence, and political and social turmoil. We will examine how these convulsions catalysed innovation in material culture (including print, painting, calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, architecture and photography) during a century in which China's art, literature, crafts and technology faced unprecedented exposure to global influences. 1796 - the official end of the reign period of the Qianlong emperor - is viewed as the end of the 'high Qing' and the start of a period of protracted crisis. In 1912, the last emperor, Puyi, abdicated after the revolution of 1911, bringing to an end some 2,000 years of dynastic rule and making way for the republic. The research will explore the distinctive ways in which material culture illuminates changing political and social identities (especially in groups often excluded from the written record) and lived experience at many levels of society, and supports or subverts textual narratives. It will innovate by uniting museum and academic expertise in late imperial China, and fully integrating material and visual culture with textual history, to collaborate on research that through publications and a major exhibition will communicate to diverse audiences a new narrative about late Qing rule. There is a pressing need to revisit, through the prism of material culture, the late Qing era, which until recently has been mainly defined as an era of cultural stagnation and 'national humiliation'. This project will build on recent scholarship to establish a new understanding of 19th-century China's innovations and create a detailed visual account of its responses to war, technology, urbanisation, political identities and external influences. The research also has urgent contemporary resonance. This century forms a crucial bridge to the modern, post-imperial era. Interpretations of the 19th century are fundamental to governance, culture and political legitimacy in China today. In contemporary China, conflicts with Western and Japanese imperialism in the 19th century remain at the front of public memory. Analysts look to the late imperial period to understand the factors that underpin China's current success, as well as the history of strategies to meet enduring political, economic, social, ethnic and environmental challenges. Now that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is reasserting itself internationally, we need to understand the origins and nature of the multi-ethnic modern Chinese state for clues about the kind of global player the PRC is becoming. Disseminating cutting-edge research reliant on 19th-century primary sources to as broad an audience as possible is essential to maintaining rigorous, evidence-based debate about China's past and present. Through academic and public outreach, this project will effectively convey the complexity of this crucial era to both constituencies. The project will have a lasting impact through - in addition to its major exhibition and accompanying book of essays - an international conference and edited volume examining material culture via key themes in late imperial Chinese history: war, empire, localisation and globalisation. The questions raised will help shape the next generation of scholarship. Relying on global collaborations, the research will facilitate dialogue among and between international experts on 19th-century China, and general audiences. It will enable both established and early career scholars to conduct research that will enhance their careers and forge strong links between museums and universities across Asia, Europe and the US. It will highlight individual responses to the century's challenges and crises, charting the diversity of experience across China's society and landscape.