Everyday Experience

• Published in: Republican Lens Vol. 30; p. 79
• Main Author: Judge, Joan
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States University of California Press 21.07.2015
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Art genres and movements; Art history; Arts; Asian History; Behavioral sciences; Communication skills; Communications; cover art; Editorials; essay contests; everyday; experience; Friendship; Human populations; Imaging; Interpersonal relations; Journal writing; Journalism; Language skills; Literary criticism; Literary genres; Literary studies; Literature; Mass communication; Mass media; Men; News media; Persons; photographic portraits; Photography; Poetic themes; Poetry; Political change; Political processes; Political revolutions; Political science; Politics; Population studies; Portrait photography; Portraits; Psychology; quantification; science; Social psychology; Social sciences; visualization; Writing skills; Written composition
• ISBN: 9780520284364; 0520284364
• DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520284364.003.0003

The notion of “experience” was central to the new epistemology that underlay Bao Tianxiao’s editorial agenda. The premise of this epistemology, which gained prominence in the early Republic and salience in the commercial periodical press, was that experience determined the conditions of knowledge. Reasoning was inductive, empiricism was the source of truth, and—in something of a provocation to the Chinese scholarly tradition—lived experience trumped book learning.¹ Funü shibao’s mandate was to capture, expound on, and extend the parameters of women’s lived experience in order to enrich their social and intellectual knowledge. It is because Chinese women’s experience is