What is it about?
The article explores the kinds of texts produced for and consumed by less educated readers in early-20th century China. It focuses on texts that offered useful knowledge such as treatments for opium addiction or instructions for caring for, categorizing, and hybridizing plants.
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Why is it important?
To date we have little understanding of how Chinese non-elite or mass readers understood science. This article closely reads daily-use materials produced for and consumed by common readers and discovers that much of their contents was of scientific value. The article thus challenges the widespread view of common readers and the works they consulted as ignorant, superstitious, and backwards. It also argues for an understanding of Chinese knowledge based on its ongoing circulation between what have been conceived of as intellectually separate "elite" and "non-elite" realms.
Perspectives
This research has been a revelation for me as it brings us closer to the minds and preoccupations of non-elite readers. It demonstrates the richness and practicality of "mass" thought.
Joan Judge
York University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Science for the Chinese Common Reader? Myriad Treasures and New Knowledge at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Science in Context, September 2017, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0269889717000187.
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