PRINTING TECHNOLOGY AND THE TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE：THE CULTRAL NEXUS OF POWER IN EARLY 20TH - CENTURY EAST ASIA印刷技術與知識轉移：權力的文化網絡在二十世紀初的東亞
This article critiques the linear application of Benedict Anderson’s argument on “print capitalism” to the case of East Asia, arguing that in the early twentieth century, the transfer of knowledge mediated by typographic technology cannot be explained as a mere technical advance imported from the Eu...
Saved in:
| Published in: | Review of Culture |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Articles |
| Published: |
Instituto Cultural de Macau
2014
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40045/2409 |
| Summary: | This article critiques the linear application of Benedict Anderson’s argument on “print capitalism” to the case of East Asia, arguing that in the early twentieth century, the transfer of knowledge mediated by typographic technology cannot be explained as a mere technical advance imported from the European “center” to the “periphery.” Instead, the text proposes understanding mechanized printing as a cultural and political process of negotiation, in which foreign technologies were reconfigured by local traditions of editorial culture and by preexisting reader market dynamics. Mobilizing historiographical discussions on the Chinese adaptation of Western printing (in dialogue with Christopher Reed’s analysis) and the Sino-Japanese regional circulation during the “golden decade” (1898–1912), the article argues that print modernity in Asia was woven by transnational networks of knowledge circulation, articulated by interconnected agents, cities, and institutions. It concludes that typographic technology functioned as the infrastructure of a “cultural nexus of power”: while enabling new forms of intellectual circulation and standardization, it also served to sustain projects of Asian modernity that simultaneously sought to imitate Western models and assert regional singularities. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |