Historian and Courtesan: Chen Yinke and the Writing of Liu Rushi Biezhuan

In the 1980s the life and work of Chen Yinke, who had died in 1969 during the Cultural Revolution, re-emerged in print. Chen was a former Tsinghua historian and an intellectual luminary who had enjoyed a scholarly reputation prior to 1949. Yet Chen was neither a member of the Chinese Communist Party nor a cultural cadre in the post 1949 regime. Chinese Communist Party historiography has traditionally been resolute in turning the gaze away from sites and zones of buried cause, abandoned fights, suppressed memories, and proscribed ways of life. Historical memory, no less than visions for the future, requires diligent management in the forward-looking ideology of Chinese communism. The past, freely accessed, poses as much problem as the present or the future. The celebration of Chen Yinke thus raises interesting questions in a new way. [George Ernest Morrison Lecture on Ethnography, 2003, The Contemporary China Centre]