Self-Development Ethics and Politics in China Today: A Keyword Approach [Paperback]

This volume takes readers on a journey into a central aspect of life in China, so-called self-development. Whether prompted by the cultural values of educational success, capitalist competition for wealth, or the Chinese Communist Partys prescriptions for good citizenship, few people in China are immune to the impetus to improve themselves and thus bring about a better future. Contributors to this volume, interdisciplinary sinologists, draw on materials from practices in education, labor, and self-help as they spotlight keywords by which individuals make sense of their self-development journeys  including new forms of resistance to social norms. Rather than simply classify self-development by different activities or groups, the chapters map together ethical features that cut across Chinese society. Contributors explore the nuanced and ambivalent attitudes towards self-development of individuals navigating various requirements and pursuing more complete forms of existence. In so doing, they offer a snapshot of China that intersects with timely global concerns.Gil Hizi is a postdoctoral fellow at the Goethe University Frankfurt.Acknowledgements, Introduction by Gil Hizi, Part I: Developmentalist Thinking, 1. Luohou (lagging-behind) and the impetus of self-improvement by Marius Meinhof, 2. Fendou (struggle), self-help and Chinese modernity by Marco Fumian, 3. Optimizing Individual Desires: Mengxiang (dreams) and entrepreneurship in Chinese Universities by Naja Morell Hjortsh?j, Part II: Transformative Frameworks, 4. Qingxu shifang (emotional release) in psychotherapeutic learning by Anna Iskra, 5. 'You've Got to Have Core Muscles': Duanlian (exercise) and the disciplining of body and self among white-collar women by Xinyan Peng, 6. Jiaohua (education for transformation) and self-refashioning in Chinese individuals' Confucian learning by Canglong WlÓV