“Animals” in Republican China: The Logistics of Science and the Rise of a Scientific Category

The first decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of an elite class of Chinese scientists who were educated in Europe and North America and occupied positions of authority in China. Historians of science have used the concept of scientific nationalism to frame the phenomenon and discuss how patriotism had motivated Chinese scientists to produce modern science in order to strengthen their nation. This article focuses on the logistics of science, which can help conceptualize modern Chinese science as not only a situated knowledge but also a broad, distilled context of “pure” transactional value – that of naming, displaying, and managing animals and epizootic diseases. Through the lens of “animals” as an emerging scientific category, the article examines how conceptual and epistemological shifts resulted from new urban, curatorial, and scientific practices, all of which transformed animals into an object of expert analysis in Republican China.