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Inward Turns, Then and Now

Inward Turns, Then and Now The term involution has been used to characterize economic development and state formation in eighteenth- through twentieth-century China; more recently, it has seen unprecedented popularity in Chinese-language social media as a representation of the lived experience of individuals in the contemporary era. In each of these cases, the trope of involution implies a judgment on the productivity of labor and resources invested and is often tied to discourses of “Chinese uniqueness.” In Sinological circles as in social media, however, the dynamics that involution claims to represent are better explained through Malthusian approaches to the problem of population increase and Marxist understandings of the relationship between capital and labor: the dynamics in question are not unique to China but typical of broader movements in the world system. I argue nonetheless that the rhetoric of involution deserves closer investigation, and focus particular attention on involution's origins in the field of aesthetics and the rise of involutionary parallelism in the Ming-Qing examination essay. It is here that the dynamics of cultural capital that dominate in the Ming and Qing anticipate the effects of surveillance capital in the twenty-first century. When a so-called eight-legged essay folds back into its own prose both literally and figuratively, can we simply dismiss the complex interiority that results? Or does it speak as well to our contemporary anxieties about individual identity in the age of algorithms? http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture Duke University Press

Inward Turns, Then and Now

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Copyright
Copyright © 2022 by Duke University Press
ISSN
2329-0048
eISSN
2329-0056
DOI
10.1215/23290048-9681241
Publisher site
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Abstract

The term involution has been used to characterize economic development and state formation in eighteenth- through twentieth-century China; more recently, it has seen unprecedented popularity in Chinese-language social media as a representation of the lived experience of individuals in the contemporary era. In each of these cases, the trope of involution implies a judgment on the productivity of labor and resources invested and is often tied to discourses of “Chinese uniqueness.” In Sinological circles as in social media, however, the dynamics that involution claims to represent are better explained through Malthusian approaches to the problem of population increase and Marxist understandings of the relationship between capital and labor: the dynamics in question are not unique to China but typical of broader movements in the world system. I argue nonetheless that the rhetoric of involution deserves closer investigation, and focus particular attention on involution's origins in the field of aesthetics and the rise of involutionary parallelism in the Ming-Qing examination essay. It is here that the dynamics of cultural capital that dominate in the Ming and Qing anticipate the effects of surveillance capital in the twenty-first century. When a so-called eight-legged essay folds back into its own prose both literally and figuratively, can we simply dismiss the complex interiority that results? Or does it speak as well to our contemporary anxieties about individual identity in the age of algorithms?

Journal

Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2022

References

  • England's Divergence from China's Yangzi Delta: Property Relations, Microeconomics, and Patterns of Development
    Brenner, Robert Christopher Isett
  • Industry and Its Motivations: Reading Tang Xianzu's Examination Essay on the Problem of Excess Cloth
    Des Forges, Alexander
  • The Rhetorics of Modernity and the Logics of the Fetish
    Des Forges Charles A. Laughlin
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    Des Forges
  • Wenfa jishuo
    Gao Dang 高嵣
  • Loose Ends of Theory on the Individual, Pattern, and Involution in Primitive Society
    Goldenweiser, Alexander J. Lowie
  • The Attention Economy and the Net
    Goldhaber, Michael
  • Development or Involution in Eighteenth-Century Britain and China? A Review of Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
    Huang, Philip C. C.
  • Further Thoughts on Eighteenth-Century Britain and China: Rejoinder to Pomeranz's Response to My Critique
    Huang, Philip C. C.
  • Positive Check or Chinese Checks?
    Lee, James Cameron Campbell Wang Feng
  • Beyond the East-West Binary: Resituating Development Paths in the Eighteenth-Century World
    Pomeranz, Kenneth
  • Facts Are Stubborn Things: A Response to Philip Huang
    Pomeranz, Kenneth
  • The Galactic Polity in Southeast Asia
    Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja
  • Involution and Growth
    Vollrath, Dietrich
  • Renlei xue jia Xiang Biao tan neijuan: yizhong bu yunxu shibai he tuichu de jingzheng
    Wang Qianni 王芊霓 Ge Shifan 葛詩凡
  • How One Obscure Word Captures Urban China's Unhappiness
    Wang Qianni 王芊霓 Ge Shifan 葛詩凡
  • How China's Middle-Class Moms Became their Kids' ‘Agents.’
    Yang, Ke
  • A Digital Declaration: Big Data as Surveillance Capitalism
    Zuboff, Shoshanna
  • England's Divergence from China's Yangzi Delta: Property Relations, Microeconomics, and Patterns of Development
    Brenner, Robert Christopher Isett
  • Industry and Its Motivations: Reading Tang Xianzu's Examination Essay on the Problem of Excess Cloth
    Des Forges, Alexander
  • The Rhetorics of Modernity and the Logics of the Fetish
    Des Forges Charles A. Laughlin
  • Who Am ‘I’ in the Ming and Qing? First-Person Dynamics in Modern Prose (shiwen) Examination Essays and Classical Prose (guwen) Prefaces
    Des Forges
  • Wenfa jishuo
    Gao Dang 高嵣
  • Loose Ends of Theory on the Individual, Pattern, and Involution in Primitive Society
    Goldenweiser, Alexander J. Lowie
  • The Attention Economy and the Net
    Goldhaber, Michael
  • Development or Involution in Eighteenth-Century Britain and China? A Review of Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
    Huang, Philip C. C.
  • Further Thoughts on Eighteenth-Century Britain and China: Rejoinder to Pomeranz's Response to My Critique
    Huang, Philip C. C.
  • Positive Check or Chinese Checks?
    Lee, James Cameron Campbell Wang Feng
  • Beyond the East-West Binary: Resituating Development Paths in the Eighteenth-Century World
    Pomeranz, Kenneth
  • Facts Are Stubborn Things: A Response to Philip Huang
    Pomeranz, Kenneth
  • The Galactic Polity in Southeast Asia
    Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja
  • Involution and Growth
    Vollrath, Dietrich
  • Renlei xue jia Xiang Biao tan neijuan: yizhong bu yunxu shibai he tuichu de jingzheng
    Wang Qianni 王芊霓 Ge Shifan 葛詩凡
  • How One Obscure Word Captures Urban China's Unhappiness
    Wang Qianni 王芊霓 Ge Shifan 葛詩凡
  • How China's Middle-Class Moms Became their Kids' ‘Agents.’
    Yang, Ke
  • A Digital Declaration: Big Data as Surveillance Capitalism
    Zuboff, Shoshanna