Self as Method

Xiang Biao is a social anthropologist who was born and educated in China and now the director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Wu Qi is a journalist and an editor of ‘One Way Street,’ a Chinese literary magazine. David Ownby is a full professor, Department of History, Centre d’études de l’Asie de l’Est, Université de Montréal.

• 1. Introduction.- Part I. Beijing Interview, March 2018.- 2. Setting the Stage.- 3. Childhood Picture.- 4. The 1980s Culture Craze.- 5. Beida after 1989.- 6. Researching Zhejiang Village.- 7. Youth Melancholy.- 8. The Center and the Margins.- 9. Personal Crisis.- 10. Globalization and Anti-Globalization.- 11. Using the 1980s to Critique the 1980s.- 12. What is Criticism?.- 13. Empathetic Scholarship.- Part II. Oxford Interview, August 2018.- 14. Setting the Stage.- 15. Impressions of Oxford.- 16. A Sense of Distance and Directness.- 17. Anthropologists and their World.- 18. Non-Fiction Writing.- 19. Academics is not a vocation.- 20. Nationalism and Populism.- 21. Singapore Enlightenment.- 22. The Importance of Community.- 23. Building your own Cross-Border Worlds.- 24. Universities Should Look for the Exceptional.- 25. Problematizing Individual Experience.-26. New Research.- 27. Common Ideals.- 28. Local Gentry as Method.- Part III. Wenzhou Interview, December 2018.- 29. Setting the Stage.- 30. Social Reproduction.- 31. The Paradox of Class Mobility.- 32. Looking for a New Discourse.- 33. Anthropology as Intermediary.- 34. The Local Gentry: Once More with Feeling.