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The Politics of Common Reading
Vernacular Knowledge and Everyday Technics in China, 1894–1954
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Joan Judge
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2025
About this book
Examines the transformation of vernacular knowledge during a pivotal period of modern Chinese history, 1894 to 1954.
What did common readers read in the midst of the revolutions that punctuated China’s long Republic (1894–1954)? How did they manage the often-unprecedented challenges of the era? What did they know and how did they know it?
In The Politics of Common Reading, Joan Judge traces the unfolding of a consequential politics of accommodation that engaged commoners as knowers rather than as an unenlightened mass. A response to the institutional failures of the era, this politics was enacted through an informal knowledge infrastructure comprised of low-budget publishers, rustic bookstalls, and a piecemeal national network. As yet unstudied, this infrastructure produced and circulated up to ten times the number of books as official, mainstream channels.
A corpus of some five hundred of these cheap collections of recipes and techniques serves as the basis for this book. Judge focuses on four challenges common readers faced: how to cure an opium addiction, avoid an electric shock, prevent a cholera infection, and graft a plant. She further draws on government, archival, periodical, and fiction materials in devising composites of individual common readers so that we can better know them: details of the crises they faced, the remedies they tried, and the knowledge they relied on as they concocted cures and applied technologies. She argues that the acts of conciliation and assemblage these readers engaged in shaped the broader epistemic terrain from which historical change was actualized in China’s century of revolution.
What did common readers read in the midst of the revolutions that punctuated China’s long Republic (1894–1954)? How did they manage the often-unprecedented challenges of the era? What did they know and how did they know it?
In The Politics of Common Reading, Joan Judge traces the unfolding of a consequential politics of accommodation that engaged commoners as knowers rather than as an unenlightened mass. A response to the institutional failures of the era, this politics was enacted through an informal knowledge infrastructure comprised of low-budget publishers, rustic bookstalls, and a piecemeal national network. As yet unstudied, this infrastructure produced and circulated up to ten times the number of books as official, mainstream channels.
A corpus of some five hundred of these cheap collections of recipes and techniques serves as the basis for this book. Judge focuses on four challenges common readers faced: how to cure an opium addiction, avoid an electric shock, prevent a cholera infection, and graft a plant. She further draws on government, archival, periodical, and fiction materials in devising composites of individual common readers so that we can better know them: details of the crises they faced, the remedies they tried, and the knowledge they relied on as they concocted cures and applied technologies. She argues that the acts of conciliation and assemblage these readers engaged in shaped the broader epistemic terrain from which historical change was actualized in China’s century of revolution.
Reviews
“A meticulously researched study complete with intriguing illustrations, Judge’s elegant book offers a fresh glimpse into the history of knowledge construction in China. Illuminating how day-to-day life interests and concerns were inextricably linked to popular perceptions of science, religion, health, and politics to form a complex web, this is an insightful volume for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of modern China.”
— Angela Ki Che Leung, emeritus, University of Hong Kong“Through her vivid and empathetic charting of the new forms of technical knowledge in early twentieth-century China, Judge tracks a ‘mundane revolution’ that remade the Chinese public. Groundbreaking in the mode of E. P. Thompson and Roger Chartier, this magnificent book on the politics and pragmatics of reading will fascinate everyone interested in literacy and society.”
— Francesca Bray, University of EdinburghTopics
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1 |
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PART 1 Common Reading
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PART 2 Vernacular Knowledge
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133 |
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 15, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9780226842769
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780226842769
Keywords for this book
modern China; politics of accommodation; vernacular knowledge; common reader; publishers; how-to books; opium addiction; new technologies; epidemics; grafting plants
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
