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Death and emotions in nineteenth-century British colonial China
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Tam, Bobby (2022) Death and emotions in nineteenth-century British colonial China. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3924103~S15
Abstract
This thesis studies emotional expressions surrounding death in nineteenth-century British colonial settings in China, including colonial Hong Kong and semi-colonial treaty ports like Shanghai. By using an array of materials including personal correspondence, memoirs, obituaries, commemorative texts, mourning poetry and travel accounts, I explore how people expressed and discussed emotions surrounding death in a colonial context with contending cultural norms. I also examine how such emotions solidified communities, buttressed regimes and galvanised political movements. I argue that in the delicate realm of emotional expressions towards death, a persisting sense of difference and pressures for uniformity simultaneously existed between the British and the Chinese throughout the period.
My research traces the emotional expressions of both the British community and the urban Chinese people living under the colonial context. The British set out their ‘emotional regime’ of commemoration, solidifying their colonial communal identity. They accentuated their differences with the Chinese population, distancing themselves from the emotional expressions of the Chinese that the British deemed emotionally inauthentic. Yet, while this sense of difference persisted, pressures for uniformity also arose. Such pressures were particularly evident in the triumph of collective narratives over individualistic and anarchic expressions. For both the British, who were preoccupied with reinforcing their imperial cause, and the urban Chinese population, who were captured by nationalistic sentiments at the turn of the century, their emotions expressed in public inclined to be collective. Collective emotional expressions left little space for individuals to express their personal attachment with the dead or their chaotic process of grieving in the public sphere.
By delving into emotions surrounding death expressed in both public and private, as well as the tension between the two, my study engages with heated questions in the field of the history of emotions, as I explore how emotions played a role in the shaping of communities and the agency of individuals in emotional expressions. My research also enriches understanding of British colonialism and cultural interactions on the ground. Finally, it offers a global perspective on the history of death, shedding light on how norms and attitudes surrounding death spread, contested and interweaved.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain D History General and Old World > DS Asia G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GT Manners and customs |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Great Britain -- Colonies -- History -- 19th century -- China, Death -- China -- History -- 19th century, China -- Foreign relations -- 19th century -- Great Britain, Imperialism -- History -- 19th century | ||||
Official Date: | June 2022 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of History | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Chen, Song-Chuan ; Fletcher, Robert | ||||
Extent: | vi, 322 pages : illustrations | ||||
Language: | eng |
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