Amy King chairs the 85th annual Morrison Lecture by Leigh Jenco
On the 5th of November 2024, Amy King chaired the 85th annual George E. Morrison Lecture in Ethnology, delivered by Leigh Jenco (Professor of Political Theory, London School of Economics) on the transmission of ideas and values in Chinese political thought. Amy King opened the event by reflecting on the Morrison Lecture’s tradition of strengthening understanding between Australia and China, and the particular relevance of these goals today amidst global tension and change in the Australia-China relationship.
Jenco’s work has pioneered the direct engagement between the fields of political theory and the intellectual history of modern China, and her scholarship brings to light current debates among Chinese intellectuals about connecting China’s past to its present.
In her Morrison lecture, entitled “Theorizing Transmission in Chinese Political Thought”, Jenco re-examined acts of transmission by Confucius and later Chinese thinkers, exploring how key ideas have been understood over time in China, as well as the co-production of ideas between China and the West. Jenco argued that transmission, which often appears conservative or passive, is distinct as it is motivated by “historical precarity”. Historical precarity is a status of threatened viability for certain ways of life to persist into the future. Consequently, being attuned to historical precarity gives the act of transmission a powerful political meaning – whether it is used to signal defiance in times of subjugation, or to shore up identity and community in times of upheaval.
Thank you to Professor Leigh Jenco for delivering the lecture, and to the Australian Centre on China in the World and fellow members of the Morrison Lecture Committee (Dr Mark Strange and Professor Ben Penny) for organising this year’s Morrison Lecture.
The recording of the 2024 Morrison Lecture by Professor Leigh Jenco is now available online.
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