TY - JOUR

T1 - Knowing male subjects

T2 - Globally mobile Chinese professionals and the aesthetics of the Confucian sublime

AU - Hird, Derek

PY - 2020/9/1

Y1 - 2020/9/1

N2 - This article probes the sources, manifestations and significances of the ambivalences and contradictions in London-based Chinese middle-class male professionals’ sense of their own gendered and cultural identities in the context of China’s twenty-first century postsocialist modernity. In doing so, it shows how Chinese middle-class men’s sense of themselves connects with wider national debates about China’s orientation in the world. To make sense of the desire of some respondents “to become a Chinese gentleman”, the article introduces the notion of the postsocialist Confucian sublime, a vision of a cultural order of increasing appeal to well-educated, middle-class Chinese men. The article argues that the Confucian sublime offers globally mobile professional Chinese men the opportunity to transcend their ambivalence towards Western modernity by providing a sense of wholeness and attainment both at a personal level and relating to China’s place in contemporary globality.

AB - This article probes the sources, manifestations and significances of the ambivalences and contradictions in London-based Chinese middle-class male professionals’ sense of their own gendered and cultural identities in the context of China’s twenty-first century postsocialist modernity. In doing so, it shows how Chinese middle-class men’s sense of themselves connects with wider national debates about China’s orientation in the world. To make sense of the desire of some respondents “to become a Chinese gentleman”, the article introduces the notion of the postsocialist Confucian sublime, a vision of a cultural order of increasing appeal to well-educated, middle-class Chinese men. The article argues that the Confucian sublime offers globally mobile professional Chinese men the opportunity to transcend their ambivalence towards Western modernity by providing a sense of wholeness and attainment both at a personal level and relating to China’s place in contemporary globality.

KW - Chinese

KW - professionals

KW - middle class

KW - men

KW - masculinities

KW - ambivalence

KW - postsocialist modernity

KW - Confucian sublime

U2 - 10.4000/chinaperspectives.10323

DO - 10.4000/chinaperspectives.10323

M3 - Journal article

VL - 2020-3

SP - 19

EP - 27

JO - China Perspectives

JF - China Perspectives

SN - 1996-4617

ER -