Which Tradition, Whose Authority? Quests and Tensions in Contemporary Chinese Reception of Greek Antiquity

What is the mission of classical studies in present-day China? Is it a professional discipline governed by Western models and standards, or should it have its own agendas and methods? Should classical antiquity be studied first and foremost on its own terms, or does the most important value of such study lie in the lessons and tools it could provide for China’s persistent quest for an alternative modernity? This article explores the deep rift over these issues between two camps of Chinese scholars by examining an academic controversy that occurred in 2015. This dispute bears strong echoes of two much earlier conflicts: that between Nietzsche and Wilamowitz in the late nineteenth century, and that between Mao and the Comintern in the 1940s. The analysis of these intriguing historical parallels and the light they shed on the nature of the 2015 event reveals that the highly contested role of classical studies in China’s modernization process has taken on new significance in the twenty-first century.