Movements in contemporary
Chinese political thought
Liberalism Ai Weiwei Gu Su Qin Hui Xu Jilin Xu Youyu Zhu Xueqin Zhang Weiying Wu Jinglian Liu Xiaobo Fang Fang He Weifang Zhang Qianfan Mao Yushi Li Yinhe
New Conservatism Chen Yuan Wang Huning Gan Yang Jiang Shigong Wu Jiaxiang Xiao Gongqin Zheng Yongnian Hu Xijin
New Confucianism Chen Ming Jiang Qing Kang Xiaoguang Yan Xuetong Daniel A. Bell
New Left Dai Jinhua Gao Mobo Cui Zhiyuan Li Minqi Wang Hui Wang Shaoguang Qiu Zhanxuan Yue Xin
Politics of China Socialism with Chinese characteristics Democracy movements
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Xu Jilin (born 1957; Chinese: 许纪霖; pinyin: Xú Jìlín) is a Chinese historian. He is a professor of history at East China Normal University,^[1] and specializes in 20th century Chinese intellectual history.

Early life

Born in 1957 in Shanghai, Xu Jilin dropped out of school and became a librarian because of the Cultural Revolution. As time passed, he eventually decided to pursue further education after passing National Higher Education Entrance Examination. He studied policy at East China Normal University.^[2]

Career

In 1982 Xu graduated with a Bachelor's degree. He became a university lecturer. From 1997 to 2003, Xu Jilin traveled to three universities as a visiting professor and visiting scholar: the Harvard–Yenching Institute,^[3] the National University of Singapore, and the University of Tokyo. In 2003, he returned to the East China Normal University where he continued his career.^[2]

Xu Jilin serves on the editorial board of the journal Twenty-First Century Bimonthly, published by Chinese University of Hong Kong.^[4]

Views

Xu is a liberal who disavows what he terms the political extremes. He believes in "small government, big society",^[4] and criticized the statist, conservative^[5] intellectual current of the Chinese New Left.^[6]

Selected works in English

• Xu, Jilin (2000). Translated by Barmé, Geremie R.; Davies, Gloria. "The Fate of an Enlightenment: Twenty Years in the Chinese Intellectual Sphere (1978–98)" (PDF). East Asian History (20): 169–186.
• ——— (2004). Translated by Black, Michael. "What Future for Public Intellectuals?: The specialisation of knowledge, the commercialisation of culture and the emergence of post-modernism characterise China in the 1990s". China Perspectives (52): 18–30.
• ——— (2012). "Social Darwinism in modern China". Journal of Modern Chinese History. 6 (2): 182–197. doi:10.1080/17535654.2012.718605.
• ——— (2018). Rethinking China's Rise: A Liberal Critique. Translated by Ownby, David. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1108470759.