George E. Morrison Lectures in Ethnology
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/145340
From the time of its inception until 1948 the lecture was associated with the Australian Institute of Anatomy, but in the latter year the responsibility for the management of the lectureship was taken over by the Australian National University, and the lectures delivered since that date have been given under the auspices of the University.
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Item Open Access Theorizing Transmission in Chinese Political Thought(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2024-11-07) Speaker: Leigh JencoMost claims to a “Chinese” political theory start and end with Confucianism: whatever else China has to offer political theory and philosophy, surely it relates to the values of filial piety, loyalty to the government, and ritual authority that were laid down by Confucius more than two millennia ago. Typically ignored in this discussion is what Confucius himself actually said about what he was doing. “I transmit but do not create,” 述而不作 Confucius told his students (Analects 7.1). In this talk, I ask: what does the act of transmission itself mean? And in what ways might acts of transmission, so often categorized as merely literary or editorial, also be meaningfully political? Confucius meant that he did not see himself as an original thinker. He was, instead, a self-styled conduit for perpetuating the ritual practices and splendorous social and literary patterns (wen文) of the declining Zhou 周dynasty. His putative transmission of what are now canonical texts—such as the Record of Rites (Liji 禮記) and the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 詩經)—was for millennia afterward taken as emblematic of how to confront situations of seemingly intractable civilizational and cultural collapse. Transmission of (largely literary) artifacts took on political significance in the expectation that this was the primary method by which social transformation could be secured and perpetuated, against the repeated failures of state regimes to ensure the right kind of order. For later Chinese thinkers, acts of transmission were constituted mainly by the redaction, editing, and re-publication of classic texts. When the rise of commercial print in early modern China enabled both new voices and new audiences to rise to prominence, transmission began taking on new significance as a mode through which vernacular perspectives—as seen in literature, poetry, or everyday life—could be and were perpetuated through textual and oral means. Transmission appears conservative, but I argue it is not inherently so. In addressing what I call historical precarity, transmission can also be attuned to the most vulnerable and marginalized experiences in society. Historical precarity is a status of threatened viability for certain ways of life to persist into the future, often but not always through writing that documents their value. The precarity motivating transmission thus suggests that whatever is transmitted stands necessarily in tension with the values and power dynamics of its time. Leveraging this tension, acts of transmission can signal defiance at times of subjugation and shore up identity and community at times of catastrophic loss.Item Open Access Class Traitors? The Assault on Intellectuals' Power in the Book of Lord Shang and Han Feizi(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2023-11-09) Speaker: Yuri PinesOne of the most notable features of Warring States-period (Zhanguo 戰國, 453-221 BCE) political discourse is the extraordinary self- confidence of intellectually active men-of- service (shi 士). Having positioned themselves as collective possessors of the Way 道, these intellectuals claimed recognition as moral guides for both rulers and society at large. A major way in which they asserted their superiority over rulers was by proliferating historical (and quasi-historical) narratives that uniformly cast rulers as recipients of their advisers’ wisdom. In this lecture, Pines will explore the counter- discourse aimed at undermining intellectuals’ authority. Two texts stand out for their systematic assault on fellow intellectuals. The Book of Lord Shang (Shangjunshu 商君 書) was arguably the earliest major text to turn the tables on intellectuals who sought appointment on the basis of perceived moral superiority. But it was Han Feizi 韓非子 that most mercilessly exposed the moralizers’ fallacies and their abuse of history. The assault by the authors of these texts on their fellow intellectuals created a paradox, though. Why did they adopt the stance of “class traitors”? What can we learn from their example about the power and the weakness of Chinese intellectuals—from the Warring States era on and well into the present?Item Open Access Internationalism, identity, and ideology in the shaping of postwar China(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2022-11-03) Speaker: Rana MitterA Kite Flies Against the Wind: Internationalism, identity, and ideology in the shaping of postwar China, and the legacy for today. The postwar period saw China debate many issues that still have immense importance for understanding the China of today. Those years contain the period of the Chinese civil war of 1946-50, but also much more than that. It was also the time when China moved into a new phase of internationalization, and became embroiled in some of the biggest global debates about the links between economic and social development. It was also a time when ideological concerns were to the forefront. There were huge debates in China in those years about democracy and constitutionalism, as well as what a powerful new political force emerging in the countryside might mean. Meanwhile, new ideas about the interaction of gender and class fuelled debates over identity. In this lecture, I will look in detail at the thinking of Chinese Government ministers, idealistic revolutionaries, and other groups who shaped postwar China – and suggest that those debates have come back to haunt their 21st-century successors. Rana Mitter is Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, and was the founding Director of the University’s Dickson Poon China Centre. His research focuses on the emergence of nationalism in modern China, both in the early twentieth century and in the present era. He is the author of several books, including Modern China: A Very Short Introduction (2008, new ed. 2016); A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World (2004); and China’s War with Japan, 1937-45: The Struggle for Survival, which was named as a 2013 Book of the Year in the Financial Times and the Economist, was named a 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, and won the 2014 RUSI/Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature. His most recent book is China’s Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism (2020), which explains why World War II in China matters so much for its politics and society in the twenty-first century. Rana presents and contributes regularly to programmes on television and radio, commenting on contemporary Chinese politics and society. His television documentary “The Longest War: China’s World War II” was broadcast on the History Channel Asia in summer 2015. In 2023 he will take up the ST Lee Chair in US-China Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.Item Open Access The Role of Shanghai in Building Modern Science in China in the 19th Century(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2020-03-11) Speaker: Benjamin ElmanThe George Ernest Morrison Lecture Series was founded by Chinese residents in Australia and others in honour of the late Dr G. E. Morrison (1862-1920), a native of Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The objects of the foundation of the lectureship were to honour for all time the memory of a great Australian who rendered valuable services to China and to improve cultural relations between China and Australia. Benjamin Elman is the Princeton University Gordon Wu ’58 Professor Emeritus of Chinese Studies, Professor of East Asian Studies and History, and former Chair of the Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton. He works at the intersection of several fields including history, philosophy, literature, religion, economics, politics, and science. His ongoing interest is in rethinking how the history of East Asia has been told in the West as well as in China, Japan, and Korea. Historians of “Chinese science” until recently have spent much of their time researching issues in pre-modern natural studies and trying to explain why modern science, technology, and medicine arrived so late in China. The “Needham Question”—Why did a divided Europe, and not imperial China, develop modern science first?—until recently remained preeminent. Increasingly, we are able to address modern science in Chinese cities from a comparative point of view and include it in the story of global science. This lecture explores the driving factors of modern scientific development in Shanghai post-Taiping Rebellion (1850-1867), which led to an increase in job opportunities in public and private industries in the early twentieth century.Item Open Access Living with China’s Resurgence in East Asia(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2022-04-28) Speaker: Evelyn GohOver the past 40 years, East Asian states have been the vanguard for learning to live with a resurgent China. There has been significant variation in their responses and strategies, and regional policy-makers have often not behaved according to what many have expected or theorised. Adopting insights from political ethnography, Professor Evelyn Goh argues for an approach that privileges East Asian points of view and local/regional socio-political contexts, to understand regional responses to a powerful China. Goh offers three correctives for understanding how regional actors think about China holistically, within national contexts as well as wider systemic considerations: the prevalence of non-zero-sum framing of geopolitical problems; the constant intersections between economic and security imperatives; and domestic politics as intervening – and sometimes confounding – variables. Professor Evelyn Goh is the Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies and Deputy Director (Research) of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, ANU. Her research focuses on Asian security and International Relations theory and practice. Her books include The Struggle for Order: Hegemony, Hierarchy and Transition in Post-Cold War East Asia (Oxford, 2013); and Re-thinking Sino-Japanese Alienation: History Problems and Historical Opportunities (Oxford, 2020, with Barry Buzan). Her current projects study the interactions between Chinese investment and influence, and domestic politics in Southeast Asia.Item Open Access Some Aspects of Morrison’s Life and Work(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 1952) Evatt, H. V; Australian National University; Australian Institute of Anatomy (1932-1985)Item Open Access The decipherment of dead languages in China: the case of Kitan(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2017) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access The Grassroots Turmoil in China’s Cultural Revolution: A Half-Century Perspective.(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2016) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access Fathoming the Orient: Australian Narratives(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2015) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access State of the Local State in China: Challenges for Xi Jinping and Beyond(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2014) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access New Perspectives on Han Urban Life(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2013) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access Reinventing the Manchus: An Imperial People in Post-Imperial China(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2012) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access Morrison’s World(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2011) Australian National University; China Heritage Quarterly (2005-)Item Open Access The Norms of Death: On Capital Punishment in China(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2010) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access Australia and China in the World(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2010) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access Reporting the Olympic Year(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2008) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access 1948: How Peaceful was the Liberation of Beiping?(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2007) Australian National University; ; China Heritage Quarterly (2005-)Item Open Access Democracy, Tax Reform and the Development of China’s Villages in Early 21st Century(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2006) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access Reforming the Local, Constructing China: Place Identity in a North China Province(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2004) Australian National UniversityItem Open Access Historian and Courtesan: Chen Yinke and the Writing of ‘Liu Rushi Biezhuan’(Canberra, ACT : Australian National University, 2003) Australian National University