Cette conférence, organisée dans le cadre de la direction d'études Histoire intellectuelle de la Chine moderne et contemporaine de Sebastian Veg (CRH-GEHM), réunira Ho-Fung Hung (Johns Hopkins University) et Pierre Fuller (Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po).

Weber’s thesis about Asiatic Religions and Marx’s thesis about the Asiatic Mode of Production created a dichotomy between an irrational/communalist East vs rational/individualist West. These theses originated from sources and ideas – such as those from the Jesuits, Montesquieu, Hegel, the Romanticists, and British colonial reports – shaped by specific historical conjunctures in Europe-Asia relation. Framed as universal scientific truth, these theories were often adopted by Asia’s state makers and contributed to many malaises and even catastrophes in the twentieth-century, from ethnic marginalization in Cold War Taiwan to the Cambodian genocide. Though the particular theses by Weber and Marx have been revised or rejected, the underlying orientalism still haunts us today and helps turn the US/Europe-China geopolitical and geoeconomic competition into a “civilizational” one.

Ho-fung Hung is the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy in the Department of Sociology and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Protest with Chinese Characteristics (Columbia, 2011), The China Boom (Columbia, 2015), City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule (Cambridge, 2022), and Clash of Empires: From “Chimerica” to the “New Cold War” (Cambridge, 2022). His academic publications have been translated into at least 12 different languages. His analysis of global and Chinese politics and economy has been cited or featured in major media outlets worldwide.

Contact : sebastian.veg (a) ehess.fr

 

Lieu

EHESS (salle AS1_24)
54, boulevard Raspail
75006 Paris