“世界”的阴影:报纸阅读与晚清的国家想象(1898—1911)

Shadow of “the World”: Newspaper Reading and National Imagination in Late Qing Dynasty (1898-1911)

从1898年起,近代中国逐渐沦为"半殖民地"社会.除了在殖民空间遭遇的中西交往以外,"接触地带"以外的民众主要通过读报知晓和理解帝国主义,此现象可命名为"远距帝国主义".通过晚清三位读书人日记,可探索以下问题:远距帝国主义呈现何种世界图景、如何介入读书人的日常生活及影响他们对国家未来的想象.研究发现,"世界"主要由环绕着中国的西方国家和日本构成;远距帝国主义普遍刺激了读书人的国家情怀,有时还和个人境遇、自我与修身紧密结合;对于国家的未来,读书人或回溯传统,或面向未来,但还难以提出解决问题的方案.与殖民空间的直接交往相比,远距帝国主义偏向传递领土、主权等冲突性议题,更容易引起一种全国性的震动.

It is widely acknowledged that modern China gradually became a "semi-colonial" society since 1898. Besides direct contact, people outside of ^contact zone^ mainly learned about imperialism through reading newspapers. This phenomenon is named as long-distance imperialism^ in the article. By analyzing three ordinary diaries, the author explores the picture of long-distance imperialism and its forms in daily life and its influences on national imagination. It was found that the world was mainly composed of the West and Japan. Some readers were stimulated by the national sentiments and some combined the imperialism with personal situation. Some of the readers went back to the tradition, the others tried to catch the future, but it was still hard to find a solution about the state. Compared with direct encounter, long-distance imperialism was more likely to cause a national shock.