I am an historian of Modern China, my research deals with politics, everyday-life, and the way in which they intertwine in republican China (1911-1949).
These interests shaped my book The Rise of Political Intellectuals in Modern China: May Fourth Societies and the Roots of Mass-Party Politics (Oxford, 2015), as well as the articles I have written. Much of this work has centered on China’s May Fourth Movement, a movement which I am increasingly trying to frame within a global context.
These themes grew out of an attempt to inquire into the way in which intellectuals and their ideas affect social and cultural change. Consequently my work has dealt with intellectuals in twentieth century China, including Lu Xun–China’s best known author of the twentieth century–and Wang Meng–author and minister of culture at the end of the tumultuous 1980s. My interest in culture has also led to an article about visual commemorations of the May Fourth Movement.
My current research interests include the emergence of mass-party-politics and communal endeavors in the first half of the twentieth-century.
Dr. Shakhar Rahav 