Lecture: History on Sale: Unofficial Archive Markets in Contemporary China
1. Jul 2025 @ 18:00 - 19:30
Event Navigation
History on Sale: Unofficial Archive Markets in Contemporary China
Dr. Yi Lu (Assistant Professor of History, Dartmouth College)
PH 20. Hörsaal der Philosophischen Fakultät, Humboldtallee 19/21
1. July (Tuesday), 18:15–19:45
Abstract:
For the past four decades, the study of contemporary China has been significantly shaped by an informal market in de-accessioned government archives. My research examines how state records have been transformed into both street commodities and scholarly resources, proposing a theory of knowledge recycling through a material economy lens. In this presentation, I explore how individuals on the margins of Chinese society, including waste recyclers, have repurposed discarded paper ephemera to create a counter-archive of knowledge. From Beijing’s Panjiayuan flea market to online platforms like Kongfuzi.com, and through various forms of indigenous classification and private museums, their cultural entrepreneurship has forged connections between a global network of scholars and collectors. This phenomenon has not only reshaped the field of contemporary Chinese history but also raised some unsettling questions about the practice and ethics of knowledge production: Who is a historian? What constitutes an archive? And what happens to history as a field when historians write with what they can buy?
Speaker:
Dr. Yi Lu is a historian of modern China, with particular interests in the history of information, material culture, and digital humanities. He is currently Assistant Professor of History at Dartmouth College and working on his first book project, The Dustbin of History: Making History in Modern China.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen