Reading as Resistance: Hannah Arendt’s Introduction, Reception, and Localization in China
Tianyue Li
*
University of Cologne, Germany.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
This paper explores the reception and reinterpretation of Hannah Arendt’s political thought in contemporary China. Tracing the delayed and contested publication of her works—most notably The Origins of Totalitarianism—it examines how Chinese intellectuals and readers have engaged with her ideas under conditions of censorship. Utilizing qualitative content analysis of user-generated book reviews on Douban, China’s largest literary platform, alongside broader online discourse, the study reveals how Arendt’s concepts—especially the “Banality of Evil”—have acquired renewed significance as metaphors for everyday authoritarianism. In the wake of the White Paper Movement and Zero-COVID protests, reading and discussing Arendt has become a subtle form of political expression. Rather than passive consumption, these acts of reading function as ritualized dissent—intellectual and emotional resistance enacted through the page. Theoretically, the paper contributes to scholarship on reader reception and political affect, showing how global political thought can be recontextualized as lived experience and subversive practice. In this context, Arendt’s work becomes not merely a translated import but a living discourse woven into the fabric of China’s present.
Keywords: Hannah Arendt, authoritarianism, resistance, reader reception