英文摘要
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This article explores and analyzes the spiritual world of intellectuals in early 20th century China through a study of Di Baoxian's (1872-1941) Pingdeng ge biji. Di Baoxian was an enthusiastic collector of people's ghost stories, and he emphasized the use of photography as a means of conducting psychical research. In addition, he devoted himself to demonstrating that religion, ghosts, and gods were not simply superstitious beliefs. He often published his viewpoints in newspapers or magazines, and he therefore had a certain readership and degree of influence. His Pingdeng ge biji was unique among the numerous notebooks of early 20th century China. The purpose of this article is to reveal how intellectuals of the late Qing navigated the complex dialectical issues between tradition and modernity. Di Baoxian was a passionate recorder of people's ghost stories and their experiences encountering ghosts. He was very interested in ghost photography, and in this he was not alone, for it was common among people in the age. On theone hand, his perspective was an extension of Grotesque style novels; on the other, it represented a response to the modern visual form. The reason why Di Baoxian was so fascinated with taking pictures of ghosts and desired to make them popular was because photography and Parapsychology represented the newly emerging scientific knowledge of the West. He combined these ideas with his own Buddhist beliefs, and transformed them into interpretative cultural tools. He sought to demonstrate that science could lend support to both religion and the Chinese cultural tradition. Consequently, "ghosts" and "photography" are actually dual metaphors in the early 20th century Chinese spiritual world of the intellectual elite. They cannot be divided into old and new, and it cannot be claimed that modernity in the late Qing had only one enlightened facet. It is more likely that a spiritual world containing both ancient and modern elements existed in the inner thoughts of intellectuals in early 20th century China. In the Pingdeng ge biji, the distinction between "ghosts" and "photography" cannot simply be reduced to that between superstition and science, or falsity and truth. Instead, in Di Baoxian's thought both are interpreted and used together, creating new texts and cultural phenomena, and leaving behind a modern introspective space characterized by strong tension and dialectical dialogues.
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