This week’s video is of Professor Mark Elliott’s lecture “Reinventing the Manchus: An Imperial People in Post-Imperial China”, which he presented at the Australian National University in June 2012 as part of the university’s George E. Morrison Lecture series. In it he discusses post-imperial Manchu history, gives a short history of the reinvention of the Manchus as a minority nationality following the birth of the People’s Republic, and ponders the future of Manchu cultural identity and its implications for the development of a single, unified Chinese nation state.
Professor Elliott is the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History at Harvard University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and is one of the leading experts on Manchu history and cultural identity. His key publications include the 2001 book The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China, which was one of the first few studies that relied on Manchu-language sources, and he is the current chair of Harvard’s Standing Committee on the PhD in History and East Asian Languages.
Further reading:
- Why the Manchus Matter: In Conversation with Mark Elliott (The China Story)
- Professor Mark Elliott’s Curriculum Vitae (Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Harvard University)
- China’s Ethnic Manchus Rediscovering Their Roots (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times)
- Manchu Studies Group
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Reblogged this on Eye on East Asia.
[...] Friday Video: “Reinventing the Manchus: An Imperial People in Post-Imperial China” - Professor Mark Elliott’s lecture on the history and future of Manchu ethnic identity and what it means for modern-day China. [...]