1. This paper investigates the relationship between political ideas and life stories-the social and historical foundations of some seemingly new political ideas with the prefix "neo-" currently being discussed by intellectuals in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The analysis is based on interviews the author conducted in1994, 1996, 2000, and 2001 and the study of writings of intellectuals of the ex-Red Guard and Zhiqing genera
2. Dr. Phil. Nora Sausmikat is a Research Associate at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Department of Political Science/East Asian Studies, Duisburg, Germany. Email: sausmikat@uni-duisburg.de. A draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in Chicago in March 2001 and at the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS) 2 conference in Berlin in August 2001. The author would like to thank all interviewees for their frankness and openness during the interview series. She also greatly respects valuable advice given during the revision process by Lowell Dittmer, Carol Lee Hamrin, David Fraser, Jonathan Unger, Timothy Gluckman, He Baogang, and the anonymous reviewers.
3. Asian Survey, 43:2, pp. 352-384. ISSN: 0004-4687 c 2003 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Send Requests for Permission to Reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223.
4. 1 The full term reads "zhishi qingnian," which means literally "youth with knowledge" refers to the educated youth aged between14 and 20 who were sent down to the countryside for reeducation during the Cultural Revolution.