This week on Sinica, your hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are pleased to welcome Geremie R Barmé, the well-known Chinese historian, author, filmmaker, and translator, and the Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University in Canberra.
And the topic for debate? Today we take a break from our usual focus on current affairs for a more wide-ranging discussion that starts with the history and constant reinvention of Hangzhou’s West Lake, and moves on to the Chinese penchant for top-ten lists, the lingering importance of Southern Song general Yue Fei to Chinese patriots, and the perennial issue of history’s grip on the Chinese psyche and its role in determining China’s place in the modern world.
Recommendations
- China Heritage Quarterly, Issue No. 28, December 2011 [West Lake edition]
- The Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW)
- In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture, by Geremie Barmé, (Columbia University Press, 2000)
- The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays, by Simon Leys (Black Inc., 2012)
- “Oxford Prof on China and the New World Order Pt 1,” February 27, 2012 [Interview with Timothy Garton Ash]