Taiwan Lectures on Chinese Studies

Confucian Humanism and Religion

Friday December 15, 2017, at 14:10 PM at Faculty of Philosophy and Arts Charles University, Celetna 20, Prague 1, Room 118

Prof. Lee Ming-huei, Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica 

Abstract: Many researchers of Confucianism argue that it is a kind of “humanism” and thus speak of “Confucian humanism.” Modern Western humanism originated in resistance against the dominant God-centered Christian culture in the medieval period and hence rivaled or even opposed religion in the very beginning. In ancient China, Confucianism in the pre-Qin period stemmed from the primitive religion in the Shang Dynasty, and then was gradually humanized, but still retained some religiousness. Contemporary New Confucians also speak of “Confucian humanism,” but are not at one on its characteristics. For Xu Fuguan徐復觀, Confucianism is strictly a kind of humanism in the Western sense, and its religiousness is nothing but a historical leftover . But for Tang Junyi 唐君毅and Mou Zongsan牟宗三, Confucianism, even after the process of humanization, still retained a kind of religiousness as its essence; in other words, religion and humanism are inseparable in Confucianism as the two sides of the same coin and maintain an eternal tension with each other. This is a kind of humanism which can coexist with religion, what Mou calls “humanistic religion” or “moral religion.” This kind of religion is a religion without the structure of religion and pertains to what Thomas Luckmann calls “invisible religion.” According to Luckmann, one of the characteristics of modern society lies in the privatization of religions; that is to say, the church-oriented “visible religion” is gradually replaced by the “invisible religion” which is based on individual religiosity. Inspired by Christian history, Kang Youwei康有為 and Jiang Qing蔣慶have advocated reviving institutional Confucianism and promoting it as the national religion in modern China. But according to Luckmann’s thesis, this is neither desirable nor attainable.

Burning the Midnight Oil: The Making of Verse Narrative Texts by Qing Women

Monday August 24, 2015, at 10:00-12:00 AM at the Fairbank Library, Oriental Institute, Pod Vodárenskou Věží 4, 182 00 Prague 8.

Prof. Hu Siao-chen, Director of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica

Abstract: This talk will explicate the reception and production of a particular form of narrative fiction. Tanci (彈詞), a genre of performing art popular in southern China, consists of both spoken and sung sections rhymed with seven-character verses. During the late imperial period, its format was borrowed in fiction and welcomed by female readers, inspiring them to write their own texts. Tanci thus became a textual space for female self-expression and literary imagination. This talk will focus on the reading, writing, transcription, circulation, and publication of the female tanci narrative in order to demonstrate the significance of this genre for our understanding of Chinese literature, especially in terms of its selfawareness in literary creation and the issue of female resistance to / compliance with society.

Tuesday, 12 May, 2015 at 9:00 – 11:00, Charels University, Celetná 20, Prague 1, room no. 118 (CCK-ISC)

Abstract: The bureaucracy of the Qin empire created and maintained power relationships between the state and the populace. The most pervasive of its institutional systems was household registration, which theoretically recorded every person in the realm. Each member of the populace in this way became known to the state in terms of core identifying information, permitting the state to track individuals across time and geographical space. Even as this system and its correlates gathered information about persons, they also disseminated information about the state, in that they created knowledge of the government’s presence and reach throughout the newly constituted realm. Historians have acquired new knowledge about these systems due to archaeological discoveries in recent decades, particularly at Liye 里耶, Hunan province, which have provided example documents from these systems. This paper considers examples of relevant materials from Liye and discusses their implications for our understanding of early imperial governance.

Monday, 11 May, 2015, 15:30 – 17:00 at Fairbank Library, Oriental Institute, Pod Vodárenskou Věží 4, 182 00 Praha 8.

Abstract: The talk draws from received history, the results of archaeological excavation, and current secondary scholarship to argue for the importance of non-coercive government under the early empire. It argues that despite its reputation as a harsh and totalitarian regime, the Qin dynasty employed a sophisticated apparatus that sought not simply to compel obedience to its order but also to persuade the population to accept its governance.