Research on China's culture and its scientific heritage within National Studies (Guoxue 國學) was characterized by efforts to construct a past that supported claims about a unique Chinese cultural identity. Its essentialist approach was criticized by those who considered China's past as an obstacle to the creation of a modern nation. Due to the critiques of the National Studies movement, the notion of National Studies was conceptualized in various ways and evolved over time. It reemerged as a veritable ``National Studies fever'' (Guoxue re 國學熱) which erupted in the late 1980s. Sometimes characterized as artificial and void of substance, as Confucian fundamentalism, defining itself as identical to the Confucian Six Arts or to sinology. The texts we will read reflect the phenomenon as one far from being homogenous in its ideological perspectives.
- Trainer/in: Andrea Breard