Download or read book Textual Patterns and Cosmic Designs in Early China written by Benoît Vermander and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Via a hermeneutics focused on Chinese numerology and concentric arrangements, this book offers a novel construal of the textual universe proper to early China writings. The author lays bare distinguishable patterns of textual composition while relating them to corresponding patterns of thinking. He differentiates rhetorical variants through detailed studies of the Zhuangzi’s Inner chapters, the Laozi, the Analects, and the Huainanzi. The philosophical depth and relevance of the Chinese ancient worldview appear in a fresh light when one unearths the patterns into which its content is embedded. The focus on textual patterns and rhetorical arrangements also facilitates the reading of Chinese classics alongside other traditions. The book will be a valuable reference for scholars and graduate students studying Chinese literary criticism, Chinese philosophy, and comparative philosophy.
Download or read book Picturing Heaven in Early China written by Lillian Lan-ying Tseng and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tian, or Heaven, had multiple meanings in early China. It had been used since the Western Zhou to indicate both the sky and the highest god, and later came to be regarded as a force driving the movement of the cosmos and as a home to deities and imaginary animals. By the Han dynasty, which saw an outpouring of visual materials depicting Heaven, the concept of Heaven encompassed an immortal realm to which humans could ascend after death. Using excavated materials, Lillian Tseng shows how Han artisans transformed various notions of Heaven—as the mandate, the fantasy, and the sky—into pictorial entities. The Han Heaven was not indicated by what the artisans looked at, but rather was suggested by what they looked into. Artisans attained the visibility of Heaven by appropriating and modifying related knowledge of cosmology, mythology, astronomy. Thus the depiction of Heaven in Han China reflected an interface of image and knowledge. By examining Heaven as depicted in ritual buildings, on household utensils, and in the embellishments of funerary settings, Tseng maintains that visibility can hold up a mirror to visuality; Heaven was culturally constructed and should be culturally reconstructed.
Download or read book Astrology and Cosmology in Early China written by David W. Pankenier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a vast array of scholarship, this pioneering text illustrates how profoundly astronomical phenomena shaped ancient Chinese civilization.
Download or read book Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China written by Francesca Bray and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 787 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on history of science and philosophy of knowledge, this wide-ranging collection of essays on varieties of diagram, schema, technical illustration and chart offers a challenging new interpretation of technical knowledge in Chinese thought and practice.
Download or read book The Encounter of Chinese and Western Philosophies written by Benoît Vermander and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vermander revisits the encounter between Chinese and Western philosophy while unfolding questions about the way "comparative philosophy" is conducted today. In the vulgate of intellectual history, "Western thought" has constructed a substantialist view of reality that puts "relations" and "processes" into a subordinate position. The same view explains for the primacy given to the autonomy of individual beings. In contrast, according to the same vulgate, Chinese thought has been stressing the fluidity of all phenomena and forms of life to best adapt to their overarching patterns. The critique of these representations is a preliminary for tackling the following question: in today’s context, what style of cross-cultural philosophical engagement should be imagined and fostered? Cross-cultural philosophical dialogue is indeed indispensable to the revival of philosophies that could be both local and genuinely dialogic. The first two chapters focus upon the dominant model propounded by Western sinologists when it comes to comparing the Western philosophical tradition with the Chinese one. The third chapter shifts to Chinese narratives about local, comparative, and global philosophies, notably assessing its self-positioning vis-à-vis Western authors, topics, and concepts. Chapter 4 offers a general reading of ancient Chinese classics, alternative to the one that presently dominates the landscape described in Chapters 1 to 3. Chapter 5 harnesses the results and insights already gathered, offering a blueprint as to the way to positively draw upon different philosophical traditions to engage common questions and pursue shared endeavors. A last chapter presents four cases of ongoing transcultural philosophical dialogues and the promises they bear, while the conclusion recapitulates the journey and opens further perspectives. Once it develops outside pre-formatted narratives, the web shaped by our philosophies and wisdoms suggests the outlines of a world that we could inhabit together.
Download or read book A Companion to Chinese Art written by Martin J. Powers and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the history of art in China from its earliest incarnations to the present day, this comprehensive volume includes two dozen newly-commissioned essays spanning the theories, genres, and media central to Chinese art and theory throughout its history. Provides an exceptional collection of essays promoting a comparative understanding of China’s long record of cultural production Brings together an international team of scholars from East and West, whose contributions range from an overview of pre-modern theory, to those exploring calligraphy, fine painting, sculpture, accessories, and more Articulates the direction in which the field of Chinese art history is moving, as well as providing a roadmap for historians interested in comparative study or theory Proposes new and revisionist interpretations of the literati tradition, which has long been an important staple of Chinese art history Offers a rich insight into China’s social and political institutions, religious and cultural practices, and intellectual traditions, alongside Chinese art history, theory, and criticism
Download or read book Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China written by Manling Luo and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholar-officials of late medieval China were not only enthusiastic in amateur storytelling, but also showed unprecedented interest in recording stories on different aspects of literati life. These stories appeared in diverse forms, including narrative poems, “tales of the marvelous,” “records of the strange,” historical miscellanies, and transformation texts. Through storytelling, literati explored their own changing place in a society that was making its final transition from hereditary aristocracy to a meritocracy ostensibly open to all. Literati Storytelling shows how these writings offer crucial insights into the reconfiguration of the Chinese elite, which monopolized literacy, social prestige, and political participation in imperial China.
Download or read book The Huainanzi written by John S. Major and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-14 with total page 1003 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compiled by scholars at the court of Liu An, king of Huainan, in the second century B.C.E, The Huainanzi is a tightly organized, sophisticated articulation of Western Han philosophy and statecraft. Outlining "all that a modern monarch needs to know," the text emphasizes rigorous self-cultivation and mental discipline, brilliantly synthesizing for readers past and present the full spectrum of early Chinese thought. The Huainanzi locates the key to successful rule in a balance of broad knowledge, diligent application, and the penetrating wisdom of a sage. It is a unique and creative synthesis of Daoist classics, such as the Laozi and the Zhuangzi; works associated with the Confucian tradition, such as the Changes, the Odes, and the Documents; and a wide range of other foundational philosophical and literary texts from the Mozi to the Hanfeizi. The product of twelve years of scholarship, this remarkable translation preserves The Huainanzi's special rhetorical features, such as parallel prose and verse, and showcases a compositional technique that conveys the work's powerful philosophical appeal. This path-breaking volume will have a transformative impact on the field of early Chinese intellectual history and will be of great interest to scholars and students alike.
Download or read book Record of an Ancient Mirror written by Jue Chen and published by Harrassowitz. This book was released on 2010 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jue Chen's "Record of an Ancient Mirror" is a study on the "Gujing ji", one of the few extant texts of the early Tang dynasty (618-907) "chuanqi" fiction. It presents concrete research on the textual history and close reading of the work, against the background of detailed informational material regarding the historical careers of Wang Du and Wang Ji, as well as the intellectual context of Sui-Tang politics, philosophy, and religion. Based on that, Chen's analysis illuminates a broad range of fields: art history and the lore of medieval Buddhism and Daoism; the spiritual geography of China's "sacred mountains"; ancient Chinese medicine and occult arts; and other related topics. Like the text on which it is based, this study deals with a wide variety of seemingly disjointed elements. Yet they all come together in a comprehensive view of the workings of Tang "tales of the strange", and traditional Chinese fictional and historical narrative in general, with their frequent adumbration of historical and religious implications beyond the specific episodes presented.
Download or read book Shaping the Lotus Sutra written by Eugene Yuejin Wang and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lotus Sutra has been the most widely read and most revered Buddhist scripture in East Asia since its translation in the third century. The miracles and parables in the "king of sutras" inspired a variety of images in China, in particular the sweeping compositions known as transformation tableaux that developed between the seventh and ninth centuries. Surviving examples in murals painted on cave walls or carved in relief on Buddhist monuments depict celestial journeys, bodily metamorphoses, cycles of rebirth, and the achievement of nirvana. Yet the cosmos revealed in these tableaux is strikingly different from that found in the text of the sutra. Shaping the Lotus Sutra explores this visual world. Challenging long-held assumptions about Buddhist art, Eugene Wang treats it as a window to an animated and spirited world. Rather than focus on individual murals as isolated compositions, Wang views the entire body of pictures adorning a cave shrine or a pagoda as a visual mapping of an imaginary topography that encompasses different temporal and spatial domains. He demonstrates that the text of the Lotus Sutra does not fully explain the pictures and that a picture, or a series of them, constitutes its own "text." In exploring how religious pictures sublimate cultural aspirations, he shows that they can serve both political and religious agendas and that different social forces can co-exist within the same visual program. These pictures inspired meditative journeys through sophisticated formal devices such as mirroring, mapping, and spatial programming - analytical categories newly identified by Wang. The book examines murals in cave shrines at Binglingsi and Dunhuang in northwestern China and relief sculptures in the grottoes of Yungang in Shanxi, on stelae from Sichuan, and on the Dragon-and-Tiger pagoda in Shandong, among other sites. By tracing formal impulses in medieval Chinese picture-making, such as topographic mapping and pictorial illusionism, the author pieces together a wide range of visual evidence and textual sources to reconstruct the medieval Chinese cognitive style and mental world. The book is ultimately a history of the Chinese imagination. Read an interview with the author: http: //dgeneratefilms.com/cinematalk/cinematalk-interview-with-professor-eugene-wang-on-chinese-art-and-film/
Download or read book On Their Own Terms written by Benjamin A. Elman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In On Their Own Terms, Benjamin A. Elman offers a much-needed synthesis of early Chinese science during the Jesuit period (1600-1800) and the modern sciences as they evolved in China under Protestant influence (1840s-1900). By 1600 Europe was ahead of Asia in producing basic machines, such as clocks, levers, and pulleys, that would be necessary for the mechanization of agriculture and industry. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Elman shows, Europeans still sought from the Chinese their secrets of producing silk, fine textiles, and porcelain, as well as large-scale tea cultivation. Chinese literati borrowed in turn new algebraic notations of Hindu-Arabic origin, Tychonic cosmology, Euclidian geometry, and various computational advances. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, imperial reformers, early Republicans, Guomindang party cadres, and Chinese Communists have all prioritized science and technology. In this book, Elman gives a nuanced account of the ways in which native Chinese science evolved over four centuries, under the influence of both Jesuit and Protestant missionaries. In the end, he argues, the Chinese produced modern science on their own terms.
Download or read book To Scale written by Joan Kee and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative new volume offers an in-depth exploration of scale, one of the most crucial elements in the creation and reception of art. Illustrates how scale has compelled audiences to rethink the significance and importance of specific works of art Takes a comparative art historical approach exploring issues of scale in an array of forms, from Islamic architecture to contemporary photography A global consideration of scale, with examples of work from ancient Egypt, eighteenth-century Korea, and contemporary Europe The newest addition to the Art History Special Issue Book Series
Download or read book Encyclopaedia of the History of Science Technology and Medicine in Non Western Cultures written by Helaine Selin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-03-12 with total page 2428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, at last, is the massively updated and augmented second edition of this landmark encyclopedia. It contains approximately 1000 entries dealing in depth with the history of the scientific, technological and medical accomplishments of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. The entries consist of fully updated articles together with hundreds of entirely new topics. This unique reference work includes intercultural articles on broad topics such as mathematics and astronomy as well as thoughtful philosophical articles on concepts and ideas related to the study of non-Western Science, such as rationality, objectivity, and method. You’ll also find material on religion and science, East and West, and magic and science.
Download or read book Encyclopaedia of the History of Science Technology and Medicine in Non Westen Cultures written by Helaine Selin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 1140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopaedia fills a gap in both the history of science and in cultural stud ies. Reference works on other cultures tend either to omit science completely or pay little attention to it, and those on the history of science almost always start with the Greeks, with perhaps a mention of the Islamic world as a trans lator of Greek scientific works. The purpose of the Encyclopaedia is to bring together knowledge of many disparate fields in one place and to legitimize the study of other cultures' science. Our aim is not to claim the superiority of other cultures, but to engage in a mutual exchange of ideas. The Western aca demic divisions of science, technology, and medicine have been united in the Encyclopaedia because in ancient cultures these disciplines were connected. This work contributes to redressing the balance in the number of reference works devoted to the study of Western science, and encourages awareness of cultural diversity. The Encyclopaedia is the first compilation of this sort, and it is testimony both to the earlier Eurocentric view of academia as well as to the widened vision of today. There is nothing that crosses disciplinary and geographic boundaries, dealing with both scientific and philosophical issues, to the extent that this work does. xi PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Many years ago I taught African history at a secondary school in Central Africa.
Download or read book To Become a God written by Michael J. Puett and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evidence from Shang oracle bones to memorials submitted to Western Han emperors attests to a long-lasting debate in early China over the proper relationship between humans and gods. One pole of the debate saw the human and divine realms as separate and agonistic and encouraged divination to determine the will of the gods and sacrifices to appease and influence them. The opposite pole saw the two realms as related and claimed that humans could achieve divinity and thus control the cosmos. This wide-ranging book reconstructs this debate and places within their contemporary contexts the rival claims concerning the nature of the cosmos and the spirits, the proper demarcation between the human and the divine realms, and the types of power that humans and spirits can exercise. It is often claimed that the worldview of early China was unproblematically monistic and that hence China had avoided the tensions between gods and humans found in the West. By treating the issues of cosmology, sacrifice, and self-divinization in a historical and comparative framework that attends to the contemporary significance of specific arguments, Michael J. Puett shows that the basic cosmological assumptions of ancient China were the subject of far more debate than is generally thought.
Download or read book China Review International written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Geschichte der Philologien written by Christoph König and published by Wallstein Verlag. This book was released on 2022-10-12 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Geschichte der Philologien" (bis 2019 "Geschichte der Germanistik") wurde 1991 von Christoph König als Organ germanistischer Wissenschaftsgeschichtsforschung gegründet. Aus der Beobachtung anderer, benachbarter Philologien wurde allmählich eine Komparatistik der Fächer, im Sinn des historischen Vergleichs und der philosophischen Reflexion. Das internationale Editorial Board begleitet aktiv den Weg: Dort sind die verschiedenen Fächer (Arabistik, Sinologie, Sanskritforschung, Klassische Philologie, Germanistik) durch namhafte Gelehrte vertreten. Die Aufsätze erscheinen in den drei Sprachen Deutsch, Englisch und Französisch. Neben Forschungsbeiträgen zu den einzelnen Philologien werden Inedita präsentiert, Neuerwerbungen in Literatur- und Universitätsarchiven vorgestellt und Forschungsprojekte skizziert. Jedes Doppelheft enthält eine ausführliche, kommentierte Bibliographie der Neuerscheinungen in den verschiedensten Fächern. Mit Beiträgen u. a. von: Norbert Groeben, Christoph König, Andreas Mayer, Hans-Harald Müller, Christoph Strosetzki sowie einer Kommentierten Fachbibliographie 2021-2022.
