The East Asian Studies Center 50th Anniversary Conference presents:
James Millward
Georgetown University
Title: Decolonizing the Historiography of China
Time: 10:30-11:30 AM
Abstract: Recent policies of the Chinese Communist Party have taken a hard assimilationist turn, precipitating crises in Xinjiang and Hong Kong and potentially Tibet and Taiwan as well. The narrow northern Han-focused narrative of a monolithic "Zhonghua minzu" identity does not in fact fully reflect the political traditions of the East Asian mainland, nor of the Qing empire that broke up in 1912. But Anglophone scholarship on China's recent past has largely echoed and entrenched the nationalistic narrative constructed and promoted by 20th century Chinese republics, starting with our habit of treating the series of "Chinese dynasties" as a political continuity--a practice we do not follow for monarchies in other world regions--and including common terminology that implicitly supports CCP aggression against indigenous non-Han peoples in the PRC, as well as against Hong Kong and Taiwan, and even implies a measure of legitimate CCP suzerainty over neighboring Asian states. This lecture will suggest other ways of talking about the distant and more recent Chinese past that reflect its culturally and politically plural nature and challenge the Han-centric CCP hegemonic narrative.
James A. Millward is Professor of Intersocietal History at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, teaching Chinese, Central Asian and world history. He also teaches in the program of the Máster Oficial en Estudios de Asia Oriental at the University of Granada, Spain. His specialties include Qing empire; the silk road; Eurasian lutes and music in history; and historical and contemporary Xinjiang. He follows and comments on current issues regarding the Uyghurs and PRC ethnicity policy. Millward has served on the boards of the Association for Asian Studies (China and Inner Asia Council) and the Central Eurasian Studies Society, and was president of the Central Eurasian Studies Society in 2010. He is series editor for the "Silk Roads" book series published by Chicago University Press. His publications include The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (2013), Eurasian Crossroads: a history of Xinjiang (2007), New Qing Imperial History: the Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde (2004), and Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity and Empire in Qing Central Asia (1998). His most recent album, recorded with the band By & By, is Songs for this Old Heart. His articles and op-eds on contemporary China appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Review of Books and other media.
Free and Open to the Public
This event is sponsored in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center. Additional sponsors include: East Asian Studies Center, Institute for Chinese Studies, Institute for Japanese Studies, Institute for Japanese Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Department of History, Office of International Affairs.