“Good books capture critical moments. Liu has captured one here.” · Asian Anthropology
“The book as a piece of writing is fluid and graceful. Liu's ethnographic accounts are indeed masterly--deftly weaving dialogue, observation, metaphor, and analysis in a way that would make many writers (of both fiction and nonfiction) sigh with envy. Liu juxtaposes characters and incidents in such a way as to subtly highlight the themes at hand, using humor, irony, and understatement to bring to life the world of ‘making up numbers.’ Liu effectively suggests that the rise of statistics and the objective mode are, like the rise of Maoism and the ideological mode, a phase in history that may or may not appear equally ridiculous in years to come. Can we see outside our own spot in history, Liu asks, and should we (and the people of China) give up dreaming and utopias merely because our current historical moment favors the narcissistic, corporeal statistic?” · H-Ideas
Today’s world is one marked by the signs of digital capitalism and global capitalist expansion, and China is increasingly being integrated into this global system of production and consumption. As a result, China’s immediate material impact is now felt almost everywhere in the world; however, the significance and process of this integration is far from understood. This study shows how the a priori categories of statistical reasoning came to be re-born and re-lived in the People’s Republic - as essential conditions for the possibility of a new mode of knowledge and governance. From the ruins of the Maoist revolution China has risen through a mode of quantitative self-objectification.
As the author argues, an epistemological rift has separated the Maoist years from the present age of the People’s Republic, which appears on the global stage as a mirage. This study is an ethnographic investigation of concepts - of the conceptual forces that have produced and been produced by - two forms of knowledge, life, and governance. As the author shows, the world of China, contrary to the common view, is not the Chinese world; it is a symptomatic moment of our world at the present time.
0 有用 曼 2013-08-12 22:48:25
分析清华某口述史研究的部分很受启发
0 有用 anfieldworker 2013-06-12 20:19:28
0 有用 chaosmori 2022-10-19 13:29:23 美国
Prologue。。。
0 有用 Accélération 2023-09-07 14:52:50 北京
他在讲什么...
0 有用 . 2017-01-12 15:24:32
The dpt of culture or literature studies is definitely a better place for Liu, where many professors can explicitly and even proudly base their laughable conclusions on frivolous fantasies or unrepres... The dpt of culture or literature studies is definitely a better place for Liu, where many professors can explicitly and even proudly base their laughable conclusions on frivolous fantasies or unrepresentative "evidence". (展开)
0 有用 Accélération 2023-09-07 14:52:50 北京
他在讲什么...
0 有用 chaosmori 2022-10-19 13:29:23 美国
Prologue。。。
0 有用 破浪潮🌈 2021-08-15 00:00:48
狮身:超故事给予的内生性生活、知识、革命来源;人面:与现代他者的比较赋予的外生性价值标准。A系列时间链条断裂,自我沦为数字和他者投射,无法再识别作为人的自我。(我很好奇,他者那一面的故事,比如美国人如果具备自我?)
0 有用 浣熊N号 2019-09-29 01:30:37
刘新系列看过,都没有印象了,只记得一位研究马来西亚华人的老师好像很推荐,还是很浓厚的海外中国研究味道。国内相关书评写的很精彩
0 有用 . 2017-01-12 15:24:32
The dpt of culture or literature studies is definitely a better place for Liu, where many professors can explicitly and even proudly base their laughable conclusions on frivolous fantasies or unrepres... The dpt of culture or literature studies is definitely a better place for Liu, where many professors can explicitly and even proudly base their laughable conclusions on frivolous fantasies or unrepresentative "evidence". (展开)