The “Birth” of Chinese Mythology in the Modern Era and the Making of a New National and Ethnic Identity

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• Jeongha Lee, Ewha Womans University
• Wednesday 26 November 2025, 13:00-14:00
• Online: zoom link provided in abstract.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Geonyoung Kim.

Before mythology was introduced to modern East Asia, China possessed neither the concept nor the vocabulary for “myth.” In 1895, the term shinwa (神話) was first employed in Japan as a translation of the Western word “myth,” and after Jiang Guanyun (蔣觀雲) published the earliest study of Chinese myth in 1903, early Chinese mythologists came to share a common understanding: myth could serve as a means of saving the nation and its people from the threat of Western powers. By reflecting on Western myths, they sought to rebuild a national identity endangered in an era of civilizational transition and to restore China to the ranks of civilized nations, centering this effort on the Yellow Emperor (黃帝), whom they elevated as the progenitor of the Chinese nation. Reinforcing this project was the rise of nineteenth-century racial theory. Although originally formulated by Westerners to disparage East Asians, the notion of the “yellow race” was appropriated by some Chinese intellectuals as a tool of self-assertion; by linking it to the Yellow Emperor, they argued that the “true” China should be freed from Mongol and Manchu rule, which they regarded as foreign.

Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3LtyviJ

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89806369168?pwd=AbtMbAVULTa09vJe8HlOMLXdP4dewD.1

Meeting number: 898 0636 9168 Password: 720097

This talk is part of the Department of Archaeology - Asian Archaeology Group Seminar Series series.

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• Department of Archaeology - Asian Archaeology Group Seminar Series
• Online: zoom link provided in abstract

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