How to study the May Fourth Movement from a local perspective

Abstract

Innovation in historical research often differs from transitions between old and new paradigms. Much of what is “new” in research is the contemporary representation of the “old.” As far as the study of the May Fourth Movement is concerned, there are two possibilities for innovation. One is to write a complete history such as Chow Tse-tsung’s classic work on this movement or Li Zehou’s work on modern Chinese intellectual history. We will always appreciate this kind of scholarly work and may attempt something similar in the future, but probably not right now. This type of work is particularly appealing to us due to its distance from current mainstream academic output, which focuses mostly on specific topics rather than general narratives. The other possible route to innovation in the study of the May Fourth Movement is inspired by the return of revolutionary history and political history in recent years. This trend has led to new, in-depth research on conventional topics such as the 1911 Revolution, the May Fourth Movement, the Northern Expedition, and the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Both of these possibilities are through the approach of “liberation by revisiting the past” (yi fugu wei jiefang), meaning they not only tap the potential of classical writing methods and conventional research fields, but also create “new designs from old brocade,” an approach reflecting the influence of new cultural history and traces of social sciences. This latter sense has inspired the study of the May Fourth Movement from a local perspective. The fundamental difference between studying the May Fourth Movement from a local perspective and studying the May Fourth Movement in particular places (such as Jiangsu, Shandong, and Zhejiang) is not a physical area of focus (from large to small), or a regional focus (from coastal to inland areas), or a focus on center versus periphery. Apparently the focus of a local perspective can be the county level or even rural society below the county level, but it can also be large cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, or provincial capitals such as Hangzhou. Wen-hsin Yeh’s classic study of the May Fourth Movement in Hangzhou has proved this point. Judging from her research, “local” seems to refer literally to certain concrete areas, but it also represents a research perspective and an analytical approach that emphasizes the following four points. First, in different places, the occurrence, expansion, and continuation of the May Fourth Movement may follow a logic fitting to each particular locale. Even the logic of