Easting the West: Theorizing the Postliberal Conjuncture from China

From intellectual history to the dazzling, chaotic, and jargon-laden world of digital culture, this book explores how ideas of ‘the West’ and articulations of China/West difference are produced and mobilized in Chinese political discourse. It offers an in-depth study of digital reactionary formations on Chinese social media, analysed within globally interconnected and locally embedded reinvigorations of racial nationalism, authoritarianism, and backlash against social justice movements. Theorizing the postliberal conjuncture from digital China, the book delineates how postliberal political sensibilities converge across conventional geopolitical and ideological fault lines. As the legitimacy of liberal orders erodes, the political valence of critique is unstable. The anticolonial language may be mobilized not for emancipatory ends, but to consolidate authoritarian control and legitimate violence against racialized and marginalized groups.

Bio: Chenchen Zhang is an associate professor in international relations at Durham University. She is a co-host of the Shicha podcast. More about her work is available at Chenchen Zhang's personal website

Following Zhang’s presentation, the discussion will open into an interactive exchange with Jinyan Zeng, affiliated researcher at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University, as interlocutor.