"This is the second collection of essays based on the third conference of the "Culture and Social Transformations in Reform era China" project. Conceived in 2003, the project has been carried out by the editors of this volume in collaboration with Lin Chun of The London School of Economics. The third conference was held in 2009 at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China." Introduction.

Includes index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction The Social and Cultural Roots of the Reforms / Cao Tianyu and Zhong Xueping -- 1 Modernism, Modernity, and Individualism / Nan Fan -- 2 Subaltern Literature: Theory and Practice (2004–2009) / Li Yunlei -- 3 The “Crime” of Lu Xun, Anti-Enlightenment, and Chinese Modernity: A Critique of Liu Xiaofeng’s “Christian Theology” / Lu Xinyu -- 4 From Charting the Revolution to Charter 2008: Discourse, Liberalism, De-Politicization / Daniel F. Vukovich -- 5 The Transformation of Chinese University Culture: History, Present, and Path / Liao Kebin -- 6 Academic Discourse, Official Ideology, and Institutional Metamorphoses: Reflections on Contemporary Chinese Legal Discourses and Reality / Yu Xingzhong -- 7 The Flight to Rights: 1990s China and Beyond / Rebecca E. Karl -- 8 Human Rights, Revolutionary Legacy, and Politics in China / Ban Wang -- 9 Democracy: Lyric Poem and Construction Blueprint / Han Shaogong -- 10 Rereading “Commemorating the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Fall of the Ming” / Han Yuhai -- 11 The Crisis of Socialism and Efforts to Overcome It / Cai Xiang -- 12 Post-Socialism Revisited: Reflections on “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” Its Past, Present, and Future / Arif Dirlik -- 13 Reinterpreting “Capitalist Restoration” in China: Toward a Historical Critique of “Actually Existing Market Socialism” / Yiching Wu -- 14 The Western Slump and Global Reorganization / Robert Wade -- 15 An Argument for “Participatory Socialism” / Lin Chun -- Index.

As China enters the second decade of the 21st century, it faces tremendous challenges and crisis. How did China arrive at this point of crisis? How do we understand the nature of the challenges? More than any existing study of reform-era China, this volume offers a theoretical discussion of the cultural and social roots of the reform. It does so for the purpose of further exploring whether or not it is possible to imagine alternatives. Contributors to this second volume of “Culture and Social Transformations in Reform Era China” address these questions by exploring some of the most contentiously debated topics including liberalism, human rights, rule of law, the state, capitalism, and socialism.