Accommodating cosmopolitan experiences: Jiang Dunfu’s 蔣敦復 and Wang Tao’s 王韜 autobiographical processing of their treaty port years
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: With the establishment of the treaty ports in 1842, contact between China and the Western world intensified. In Shanghai, the most extensive exchange of knowledge and ideas took place between the missionaries of the London Missionary Society and their Chinese assistants. By working and translating for the missionaries, these traditionally educated men gained intimate insights into the West and Western learning and established close personal relationships with the missionaries. But in the process, they also became outcasts, as working for Westerners was viewed critically by their contemporaries. This article sets out to analyse the way in which Jiang Dunfu 蔣敦復 (1808–1867) and Wang Tao 王韜 (1828–1897) processed and accommodated these cosmopolitan experiences in Shanghai in their prose autobiographies.
Source: Modern Asian Studies
Author: Sebastian Eicher
Institution: Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
OpenAlex ID: W4406543089