Cultural Creativity in Qing China 1796-1912

这个原创的、跨学科的国际项目将进行第一次跨类型的研究，探讨中国文化创造力如何在清朝帝国（1796-1912）漫长的最后世纪在异常暴力、政治和社会动荡中表现出非凡的韧性。我们将探讨在中国艺术、文学、工艺和技术前所未有地受到全球影响的世纪，这些动荡如何催化物质文化（包括印刷、绘画、书法、陶瓷、纺织品、建筑和摄影）的创新。1796年-乾隆皇帝统治时期的正式结束-被视为“大清”的结束和长期危机的开始。1912年，末代皇帝溥仪在辛亥革命后退位，结束了大约2,000年的王朝统治，为共和国让路。该研究将探索物质文化照亮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）的独特方式，以及社会各个层面的生活经验，并支持或颠覆文本叙事。它将通过联合中国帝国晚期的博物馆和学术专业知识进行创新，并将物质和视觉文化与文本历史充分融合，合作研究，通过出版物和大型展览向不同的观众传达关于晚清统治的新叙述。我们迫切需要透过物质文化的棱镜，重新审视晚清时代，直到最近，这一时代一直被主要定义为文化停滞和“民族分裂”的时代。该项目将建立在最近的奖学金，以建立一个新的理解19世纪中国的创新，并创建一个详细的视觉帐户的反应，战争，技术，城市化，政治身份和外部影响。这项研究也有迫切的当代共鸣。这个世纪是通往现代后帝国时代的重要桥梁。对19世纪的解读是当今中国治理、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。分析家们着眼于帝国晚期，以了解支撑中国目前成功的因素，以及应对持久的政治，经济，社会，种族和环境挑战的战略历史。现在，中华人民共和国正在国际上重新确立自己的地位，我们需要了解多民族的现代中国国家的起源和性质，以了解中国正在成为什么样的全球参与者。将依赖于19世纪原始资料的前沿研究成果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格的、基于证据的辩论至关重要。通过学术和公共宣传，该项目将有效地向两个选区传达这一关键时代的复杂性。该项目将产生持久的影响-除了其主要展览和随附的论文集-一个国际会议和编辑的卷审查物质文化通过关键主题在中国帝国晚期的历史：战争，帝国，本地化和全球化。提出的问题将有助于塑造下一代的奖学金。依托全球合作，该研究将促进19世纪中国的国际专家与普通观众之间的对话。它将使成熟和早期的职业学者能够进行研究，这将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。它将突出个人对世纪挑战和危机的反应，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.