I have always considered the age of Enlightenment an age of reason. People dare to know the unknown and question authority. The pursuit of knowledge equates to the pursuit of happiness. Some may argue that it is an age of feelings. Revolutions were brewing: regimes collapsed; rights formed; economic principles emerged; men and women of letters heatedly debated. Among all the narratives for the Enlightenment, in my mind imagination hardly comes into play. Yet the semester-long seminar alters my understanding of the age: it is an age that not only epitomizes humanity’s pursuit of knowledge. It is an age of imagination, bringing both potential and perils.

 Inspired by an age-old Soviet Union joke, the White Paper Protest took thousands of Chinese people to the street in major cities in China. People hold a blank sheet of paper with nothing written on it. As the first actual mass protest after the Tiananmen Movement in 1989, the message at first seems too easy to understand: people are arguing against the loss of freedom of speech. The protest ultimately faded as the country significantly loosened its Covid policies immediately after the outbreak of demonstrations. But one question lingers: was it really about freedom of speech, democracy, or zero-Covid policy?