The Politics of Writing Instruments: How Transnational Commodities Construct Chinese Nationalism, 1894-1938

Han Jiang, notre dame

Scholars of nationalism have long emphasized the role of objects in sustaining nationalism. As the materialization of the imagined community, “national matters” render the nation concrete and tangible. While previous scholarship has shown how nationalism uses material objects to legitimize itself, this study reverses the perspective. It examines how material objects actively participate in the historical construction of nationalism, highlighting their role as agents rather than mere instruments. Using a 'social life of things' approach, it traces objects across markets, everyday practices, and the public sphere to show how objects construct a social condition upon which nationalism emerges. Focusing on writing instruments in early twentieth-century China, the study demonstrates how colonial interventions altered their distribution, destabilizing existing cultural norms and fostering the emergence of nationalist ideology. The findings underscore the central role of materiality in understanding both the rise and consolidation of nationalism.

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 Presented in Session 154. Aesthetics, Materiality, and Ideology