2018 Vol. 1, No. 1

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Taking Confucian Religiousness On Its Own Terms
Roger T. AMES
2018, 1(1): 17-31.
Abstract:
The distinguished French sinologist Marcel Granet observes rather starkly that "Chinese wisdom has no need of the idea of God." Albeit in different formulations, this same characterization of classical Chinese philosophy has had many iterations by many of our most prominent sinologists. One important outcome of taking Granet's insight into Chinese cosmology seriously is that it will enable us to disambiguate some of the central philosophical vocabulary of classical Chinese philosophy by identifying equivocations that emerge when we elide classical Greek ontological assumptions with those cosmological presuppositions indigenous to the classical Chinese worldview. The philosophical implications of Granet's seemingly off-hand observation that China did not need the idea of a transcendent God are fundamental and pervasive, entailing as this claim does the plethora of dualistic categories that follow from such a reality/appearance distinction. When we turn to Confucian religiousness, we find that it does not appeal to an independent, retrospective, and substantive Divine Agency as the reality behind appearance and as the source of all cosmic significance. The world is an autogenerative, "self-so-ing" process-ziran er ran 自然而然-that has the energy of self-transformation within it. And human religious feelings themselves are a motor of religious meaning, understood prospectively as an unfolding and inclusive spirituality achieved within the qualitatively inspired activities of the family, the community, and the natural world. Human beings are both a source of and contributors to the numinosity that inspires the world in which we live.
[Abstract](633) [PDF 1552KB](1038)
Nietzsche's Revaluation of the “Homeric Question”—How “Philosophy has become what Philology was”
ZHANG Wei
2018, 1(1): 32-47.
Abstract:
Ever since the foundation of modern "classical scholarship" in late 18th century Germany, there has been a tension between classical philology and philosophy, and this tension was increased by the young philologist Friedrich Nietzsche to an alarming degree, which still compels us to re-think the relationship between the two. Nietzsche's revaluation of the "Homeric Question" is a typical case to show the limits of both "historicism" and "humanism," and how the tension between classical philology and philosophy is inherent in their different approaches to the "Homeric Question." Going behind the "philosophical motives" and the "value judgments" of both "historicism" and "humanism," Nietzsche discovers a vibrant and creative pre-Homeric world, and demonstrates the process by which the spirit of "destructive conflict" is transformed into that of "constructive contest" in Homer. Nietzsche's revaluation of the "Homeric Question" can therefore be seen as a prime example to resolve the tension between classical philology and philosophy.
[Abstract](669) [PDF 1552KB](468)
Chinese Cultural Influence on Hannah Jelkes in The Night of the Iguana
WANG Xuding
2018, 1(1): 48-56.
Abstract:
This paper explores the Taoist influence on Hannah Jelkes in The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams, who creates Hannah Jelkes and Maxine Faulk as binary oppositions in the play. If Maxine metaphorically stands for physical reality, Hannah clearly represents spiritual reality, thus "in a pitched battle between the spiritual and the physical," Maxine is fighting mainly for the physical Shannon while Hannah is fighting chiefly for the spiritual Shannon, who is the fulcrum of the play. Williams creates Hannah as a spiritual savior whose appearance is serene and saintly, whose manner is refined and poised, and whose behavior is kind and compassionate. Hannah's dramatic function in the play is to save Shannon from his spiritual limbo, and her ways of helping him are not only spiritual but also multidimensional, and all her ways indicate the important influence of Chinese Culture in general and Taoism in particular. With her acquired Taoist concepts, Hannah is able to help Shannon to endure his mental suffering, to turn his misery inside out, to see the cold reality, to fight against his haunting "spook," to face the hard external world, and to finally come to terms with life. Thus Hannah's saintly appearance, her courageously poised manner, her unfaltering fortitude, her kind behavior, her compassionate actions and her serenely educational talks to help Shannon all can prove the important influence of Chinese culture and Taoism that help frame the larger dramatic structure and the main development of the play.
[Abstract](479) [PDF 1479KB](372)
Rethinking Catholicism in Late Imperial China: Humanistic Perspectives
LI Sher-shiueh
2018, 1(1): 59-60.
Abstract:
[Abstract](470) [PDF 1123KB](364)
Introduction
LI Sher-shiueh
2018, 1(1): 59-60.
Abstract:
[Abstract](349) [PDF 1123KB](345)
Deification of the Virgin Mary and the Cult of Guanyin in the Catholic Madonna Images from Late-Ming China
CHEN Hui-hung
2018, 1(1): 61-75.
Abstract:
In the early twentieth century, a picture of a female figure with a child was discovered in Xi'an, China. There are two competing views on its origins:one is to link it to the Franciscan mission to China; the other to the Jesuits. For the former, the picture was identified as a white-robed Guanyin; the latter, a Chinese duplicate of an image of Madonna with Child from Rome. Thus in an intercultural setting, the figure of the picture could be identified as both the Buddhist Guanyin and the Catholic Virgin Mary. The complexity of image recognition in this case indicates that interactions of the Catholic Madonna Images with Chinese visual discourses went beyond Catholic iconography and missionary control. This article intends to offer a preliminary discussion of the Guanyin/Madonna iconography perceived in the Jesuit late-Ming context, a topic to which there has been surprisingly little attention. I demonstrate that during this period the central theme of the iconography was the concept of Madonna as the "Queen of Heaven." From this perspective, local agency would have exceeded Jesuit evangelistic strategy and the Virgin Mary could have been deified as an independent goddess. This would not only have offended Marian theology but would have provided the necessary context for associating images of Madonna with the cult of Guanyin.
[Abstract](473) [PDF 24867KB](354)
Translating the Saint: Joseph de Prémare's Figurist Torque of Chinese from Decem to Crucem
PAN Feng-chuan
2018, 1(1): 76-96.
Abstract:
This paper discusses the reception and transformation of the image of Shengren (圣人, the Saint)-arguably one of the key concepts in the Chinese classics-in the works of figurist Jesuit Joseph Henry-Marie de Prémare (1666-1736). Focusing on the interwoven images of the ideal figures in the Chinese and Catholic traditions, the author discovers in Prémare's arguments one unique interpretation of Shengren, viz., reinterpreting the Chinese character shi (十, decem, ten) as shizijia (十字架, crucem, the Cross) of the Christian tradition by integrating Pythagore's Tetractys of the Decad and the Chinese hetu (河图, River Map, Chinese mathematical square). He claims that the Chinese Shengren indicates the most pious son of the Cross and is to be understood allegorically as Jesus Christ.
[Abstract](425) [PDF 2258KB](366)
Chinese Catholic Biblical Drama in the Republican Period: An Examination of Anachronisms
LAI Tsz Pang
2018, 1(1): 97-108.
Abstract:
A corpus of performative texts, mostly representations of biblical stories, was published by the Chinese Catholic presses in the early 20th century. The biblical tales were creatively dramatized in a variety of traditional Chinese operas, folk performing arts, and modern vernacular plays, for the purposes of entertainment and disseminating Catholic thoughts and values in Republican China. Taking several biblical plays as case studies, this paper focuses on the anachronistic scenes in the scripts and the ways in which the playwrights integrated the biblical narratives with the contemporary religious context. I demonstrate that this approach of biblical interpretation sought to guide the religious practices of the Catholic community.
[Abstract](445) [PDF 1829KB](415)
Jesuit Translations of European Literature in Late Imperial China: My Studies and Beyond
LI Sher-shiueh
2018, 1(1): 109-130.
Abstract:
This essay is a summary of my scholarship on the Jesuit world of translated literature in the Ming and Qing dynasties, including a brief discussion of the accomplishments of my predecessors and successors, such as Chen Yuan and Timothy Billings. As I describe, I began my studies in this field with my doctoral thesis, which dealt with Jesuit employment of classical exemplum in the Ming Dynasty. This early exercise culminated in my first book, in Chinese with the English title, European Literature in Late-Ming China:Jesuit Exemplum, Its Source and Its Interpretation. My next book, also written in Chinese, was Transwriting:Translated Literature and Late Ming Jesuits, in which I examined eight translated texts, including Visio Sancti Bernardi and Contemptus mundi. My third book on this topic, Jesuit Chreia in Late Ming China:Two Studies with an Annotated Translation of Alfonso Vagnone's "Illustrations of the Grand Dao," was in English and was co-authored with Thierry Meynard. This book's main contribution was our translation and annotation of Vagnone's Illustrations of the Grand Dao. My most recent book is a collection of studies on topics like Jesuit translation of the Vulgate Bible and Epictetus' Encheridion. Currently, I am in the middle of a monograph on the Chinese writings and French translations of Joseph de Prémare, which I endeavor to complete and publish in the near future.
[Abstract](434) [PDF 2483KB](435)
LIU Changlin. On the Idea of Chinese Xiang (Image)-Science: In Cases of Yi-ology, Taoism, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chinese Art of War. 2 vols
LIU Yunhua
2018, 1(1): 133-135.
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[Abstract](502) [PDF 1363KB](381)
Egan, Ronald. The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and Her History in China
YAO Zhuming
2018, 1(1): 136-138.
Abstract:
[Abstract](568) [PDF 1310KB](354)
Massumi, Brian. Ontopower: War, Powers, and the State of Perception
HAO Qiang
2018, 1(1): 139-141.
Abstract:
[Abstract](422) [PDF 1370KB](402)
WANG Jiezhi. Poet's Prose: A Study of Pasternak's Novels
ZHANG Lei
2018, 1(1): 142-145.
Abstract:
[Abstract](459) [PDF 1446KB](339)
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