Now available! Telos 213 (Winter 2025): China Keywords I (Defining China, From Within and Without)

 

 

I am delighted to pass along the announcement that Telos 213 (Winter 2025): China Keywords I (Defining China, From Within and Without) is now available.  This from their press release:

“China saturates Western media and academic discourse . . . while the political and social-theoretical ideas through which China thinks, judges, and interprets that world remain largely unheard.”
—Eric Hendriks and David Pan, “Introduction”

Western analysis often treats China as a projection and reflection of its own values, to be measured from afar. Meanwhile, China’s internal public image is carefully curated by the state and guided by its own conceptual frameworks: feedback governance, cultural subjectivity, hybrid state capitalism.

Telos 213, edited by Eric Hendriks and David Pan, builds on the work of the Telos–Paul Piccone Institute’s China Initiative and its inaugural “China Keywords” conference in New York, asking whether Chinese ideas and institutions can be seen not merely as objects to analyze but as subjects capable of self-analysis and interpretation within a more global framework. Whether you consider China as an ally, competitor, or foe, these essays by authors inside and outside of China provide valuable insights into its domestic debates, historical trajectory, and strategic commitments.

Telos 213 (Winter 2025): China Keywords I is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats.

Among the terms considered in the essays are Cultural Self-Confidence (文化自信) and Cultural Subjectivity (文化主体性); Daobi (倒逼): “Reverse Force” ; Controls (統制); State-Owned Enterprises (国有企业); and Chinese Liberalism (中国自由主义).

Links to the essays (some open access) and the table of contents follow below.

Telos 213 (Winter 2025): China Keywords I Introduction Eric Hendriks and David Pan Cultural Self-Confidence (文化自信) and Cultural Subjectivity (文化主体性): An Ontology of Self and Subject (open access) Huimin Jin Daobi (倒逼): “Reverse Force” on the Chinese Path to Modernization Sikong Zhao Controls (統制): The Origins and Logic of Modern Chinese Technocracy Ernest Ming-tak Leung State-Owned Enterprises (国有企业): Their Evolution and Persistence in Contemporary China Henrique Schneider Chinese Liberalism (中国自由主义): Contemporary Chinese Liberal Intellectuals and Their “Failed Fight” Qi Zheng Debating Postliberalism Postliberalism as Ethos Mark G. E. Kelly Defending Liberalism against Its Postliberal Critics David Pan Reviews Chinese Cosmopolitanism (世界主义): A Review of Two Brilliantly Polemical Books Eric Hendriks