Three issues essential to our insight into the concept and function of historical consciousness, and the description thereof, form the core of this book: historical truth, historical comment and criticism, and ideology (including the historian's trustworthiness). Taking as a point of departure the workings of these concepts in Chinese historical thinking, the volume carefully draws comparisons with similar topics in the Western tradition. It thus advocates and shows a truly comparative approach that sets the stage for an intercultural dialogue (...) on this important subject. The first comprehensive work on the political and cognitive dimensions of Chinese historical consciousness set against its Western counterpart. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Opera and film. Though these two cultural forms are not often thought of together, they have actually existed in an interesting symbiosis, ...

Proponemos analizar el alcance de las nociones roigeanas de "teoría y crítica" como categorías epistemológicas para un humanismo crítico latinoamericano desde una lectura alternativa de Teoría y crítica del pensamiento latinoamericano. Indagamos de qué forma estas categorías involucran la legitimidad del discurso filosófico, decisiones en torno del problema del sujeto y de la verdad y modos de entender la historia. Mostramos cómo Roig opera una ruptura, en el marco de lo que él denomina una ampliación metodológica en el campo del (...) quehacer filosófico, al imbricar conceptualizaciones epistemológicas con ejercicios reflexivos en los que el filosofar explora la experiencia vital, construye sus propias fuentes y se abre a una dimensión axiológica. En el marco de este desarrollo, Roig revisa el "legado", incorpora otras voces e interviene críticamente la estructura axiológica de los discursos y analiza sus formas de reconocimiento. Buscamos mostrar las herramientas teóricas y críticas que ofrece este libro en particular para discutir las condiciones y posibilidades del saber filosófico como saber práctico social, situado y liberador y los términos de los humanismos que supone o interpela. We propose to analyze the scope of Roig´s notions, "theory and criticism", as epistemological categories to reach a critical humanism of Latin America, based on the book Teoría y crítica del pensamiento latinoamericano, as an alternative reading. We evaluate how these categories involve the legitimacy of philosophical discourse, and the decisions taken on the subject´s problem, the truth and the possible ways to understand history. We also show how Roig, in the framework of what he identifies as methodological amplification within the field of philosophy´s task, fixes a rupture when interweaving epistemological concepts with reflective exercises in which the art of philosophy explores the vital experience, builds and rebuilds its own sources and opens up to an axiological dimension. In this framework, Roig revises the "legacy", adds other voices, handles critically the axiological structure of discourses and analyzes its ways of recognition. We aim to present the theoretical and critical tools of this book, especially to discuss the conditions and possibilities of the philosophical knowledge taken as practical, social, established and as liberator; and to discuss the terms of humanisms that the philosophical knowledge presents or interpellates. (shrink)

The history of art in Russia and China is closely intertwined in the XX century, including thanks to the creative and pedagogical activities of Russian artists who found themselves in exile. Largely thanks to them, Harbin and Shanghai became major art centers in the 1920s–1930s. This period is characterized by fruitful processes in the country's art and culture, but also political upheavals at the same time. The problem of the study is to determine the peculiarities of the perception and (...) interpretation by the emigrant masters of events from the life of the Chinese people, the atmosphere that prevailed in China. Thus, the subject of the study is the paintings and graphics of the largest emigrant artists of the specified period, and the object is the images of China of those years, conveyed in their works, and the means of implementing the idea. The main purpose of this article is to determine the range of themes and subjects that Russian emigrant artists addressed when creating images of contemporary China, as well as the specifics of their artistic embodiment. It is achieved by analyzing the historiography of this issue in Russian art criticism, as well as analyzing the creative works of such prominent representatives of the artistic intelligentsia in exile as M.A. Kichigin and his daughters, V.S. Podgursky, Ya.L. Likhonos, V.A. Asypkin. The study of the thematic component of their works shows that the masters were attracted by events from the life of ordinary people, as well as psychological portraits of residents of Chinese cities. Artistically, the artists remained committed to the Russian school, but allowed the influence of expressive features of Chinese painting. (shrink)

In the 20th century, the adaptation of William Shakespeare's classic dramas onto the Chinese stage have attracted great interest. The study of such cross-cultural adaptations has positive significance not only for development of literary theory, literary criticism and literary history, but also in that it promotes unusual forms of innovation with regards to the study of performance in general. Chinese adaptations to performance and opera have allowed Chinese people to understand the essence of Shakespeare's plays, presented (...) in a more forms, and as a consequence, such adaptations function as a bridge for Sino-foreign cross-cultural exchanges and interpretations. These paper traces a panorama of Shakespeare's adaptations onto the Chinese stage in the year that celebrates the 500 anniversary of his death. (shrink)

A characteristic feature of Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian opera is the tendency to link scenes with numerous and often surprisingly lengthy orchestral interludes, frequently performed with the curtain closed. Often taken for granted or treated as a filler by audiences and critics, these interludes can take on very prominent roles, representing dream sequences, journeys and sexual encounters, and in some cases becoming a highlight of the opera. Christopher Morris investigates the implications of these important but strangely overlooked passages. Combining close readings (...) of individual musical texts with an investigation of the critical discourse surrounding the operas, Morris shows how the interludes shed light not only on the representational and narrative capacities of the orchestra, but also on the supposed 'absolute' realm of instrumental music, a concept to which many critics appealed when they associated the interludes with 'purely musical' and 'symphonic' qualities. (shrink)

The history of philosophy is the history of entire knowledge, a definition made by Lenin.1 At the same time Lenin also pointed out that throughout the two thousand years of development of philosophy the struggle between idealism and materialism, between the lines or tendencies, has never come to a stalemate.2 Based on what Lenin had pointed out, Redanov [translation of the name in Chinese—Tr.] of the Soviet Union repudiated Alexandrov's definition of the history of philosophy. As (...) a matter of fact, in defining it as the history of knowledge, Alexandrov also drew his idea from Lenin's definition. The history of philosophy is the history of knowledge and also the history of the struggle between materialism and idealism. The two definitions should complement rather than exclude each other. However, in applying them a deviation will emerge as if the use of the one would invariably violate the other. In writing The History of Philosophy of West Europe, Alexandrov applied the idea that the history of philosophy is the history of knowledge; however, he did ignore the struggle between materialism and idealism and described the progress of knowledge as a peaceful, quantitatively gradual advance. Therefore Redanov's criticism of him was not without reason. After liberation, we accepted Redanov's definition and applied it to the study of the history of Chinese philosophy. Thus we developed another deviation: We only saw philosophers of the two camps fight with each other in the history of philosophy and devoted all our energy to assigning the previous philosophers into different camps instead of focusing our attention on the complicated course of an upward spiral of the progress of man's knowledge so as to sum up the experience and lessons of such a spiral development and its regular pattern. Some people now suggest that we repudiate Redanov's idea and revive Lenin's definition. There are also people who fear the repudiation of Redanov's definition would mean a repetition of Alexandrov's mistake. We believe Lenin's definition is correct and complete. Either Redanov or Alexandrov saw only one aspect of the matter to the neglect of the other. To overcome the one-sided emphasis in our research work, we must acquire a comprehensive understanding of what Lenin had defined. (shrink)

Introduction: Chinese philosophy and the translation of disciplines -- The faces of masters literature until the Eastern Han -- Scenes of instruction and master bodies in the Analects -- From scenes of instruction to scenes of construction: Mozi -- Interiority, human nature, and exegesis in Mencius -- Authorship, human nature, and persuasion in Xunzi -- The race for precedence: polemics and the vacuum of traditions in Laozi -- Zhuangzi and the art of negation -- The self-regulating state, paranoia, and (...) rhetoric in Han Feizi -- Epilogue: a future for masters literature and Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

This singular work presents the most comprehensive and nuanced studies available in any Western language of Chinese aesthetic thought and practice during the ...

In the Chinese tradition, the relationship between art and philosophy is conceptually explored in terms of the relationship between dao and wen, which may respectively be viewed as representing philosophy and art. Over history, discourses on dao 道 and wen 文 are central to studies of Chinese literature, art, culture, and civilization. But just as dao holds a range of ideas in Chinese philosophy, wen is also one of the most complex terms in Chinese tradition, (...) whose denotations and connotations are multifaceted and open to interpretations. This article argues that the elusive nature of wen can be understood adequately from the perspective of language philosophy and aesthetics via its relationship to the metaphysical principle of the Dao. By examining the discourses on wen and dao, this article advances a thesis with three interrelated ideas: wen as manifestations of the Tao is an instance of “humanized nature”; the birth of wen marked the beginning of reflections on literature and art, hence inaugurating aesthetics in the Chinese tradition; and the early discourses on wen have determined the distinctiveness of Chinese aesthetic consciousness. (shrink)

Among the central meanings in Büchner's Woyzeck, there is one that comes clear only when we read the play in the context of the history of ideas—specifically in the light of certain currents of thought about human history and eschatology. Aspects of the play's expression are thereby elucidated, that are forcefully brought forward through the organization and compositional procedures of Berg's Wozzeck. Near the end of the long third scene of the opera, Wozzeck appears suddenly at Marie's window (...) and alludes cryptically to the mysterious signs that had come to him in the field the scene before, confiding to her that he is "on the track of something big." As those signs had first been presented through Wozzeck's eyes, they seemed like the imaginings and fears of a simple man about Freemasons and who knows what other objects of superstition, But now in the third scene he gives them a scriptural context, as though through a sudden insight: "Isn't it written, 'And behold, the smoke went up from the land, as the smoke from a furnace'?" What Wozzeck has recalled here is a passage in the Book of Genesis, chapter 19: "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. . . . and, behold, the smoke went up from the Land as the smoke from a furnace." The image is repeated in the New Testament Book of Revelation , chapter 9: "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit as the smoke of the great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit." Both passages are about a holocaust visited by a wrathful God upon a corrupt and debauched people, and that is the idea that begins to form in Wozzeck's mind as he stands for the first time on the stage before his mistress. And he asks, "What will it all come to?" The answer to this thematic question lies in the strange unfolding of the drama, pressed forward by forces that lie, as Büchner had once put it, "Outside of ourselves"1 and by Wozzeck, who guarantees the outcome as he imagines himself becoming aware of what it must be. · 1. Letter to his family, February 1834: "I scorn no one, least of all because of his understanding or his education, for it lies in no one's power not to become a dumbbell or a criminal—because we have all become alike through like circumstances, and because the circumstances lie outside of ourselves . . ." Werner Lehmann, George Büchner: Sämtliche Werke und Briefe , 2:422. Leo Treitler, professor and chairman of the department of music at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is the author of, among other works, "Dufay the Progressive" and "Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant.". (shrink)

Via a hermeneutics focused on Chinese numerology and concentric arrangements, the 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. (shrink)

The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature explores the growth, makeup, and transformation of Chan (Zen) Buddhist literature in late medieval China. The volume analyzes the earliest extant records about the life, teachings, and legacy of Mazu Daoyi (709-788), the famous leader of the Hongzhou School and one of the principal figures in Chan history. While some of the texts covered are well-known and form a central part of classical Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) literature (...) in China, others have been largely ignored, forgotten, or glossed over until recently. Poceski presents a range of primary materials important for the historical study of Chan Buddhism, some translated for the first time into English or other Western language. He surveys the distinctive features and contents of particular types of texts, and analyzes the forces, milieus, and concerns that shaped key processes of textual production during this period. Although his main focus is on written sources associated with a celebrated Chan tradition that developed and rose to prominence during the Tang era (618-907), Poceski also explores the Five Dynasties (907-960) and Song (960-1279) periods, when many of the best-known Chan collections were compiled. Exploring the Chan School's creative adaptation of classical literary forms and experimentation with novel narrative styles, The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature traces the creation of several distinctive Chan genres that exerted notable influence on the subsequent development of Buddhism in China and the rest of East Asia. (shrink)

The Chinese translation of Coca Cola is thought to be a well-known good translation, and many people discussed the translation or brand translation with it as an example. A large number of books or articles generally and abstractly conclude that the Chinese translation leaves people a kind of feeling of coolness and cleanness, pleases and attracts consumers’ attention and their favor, however there is not still a book or an article studying systematically and scientifically how good the translation (...) is, neither wholly from perspectives of linguistics, culture and aesthetic translation. Based on the literature review and comparative analysis with cultural translation study and translation aesthetics, the thesis is to discover how good the translation is, based on the analysis of Chinese translation of Coca Cola from the aspects of linguistics, culture and translation aesthetics, and to build a criticism model of translation of brand names, in addition, to analyze the enlightenment of this translation in other translation activities. (shrink)

This paper explores Zha Changping’s humanistic criticism of pioneering Chinese art as a new paradigm in art criticism after the postmodern disintegration of traditional art history with its linear art history writing. It introduces the “seven forming factors” at the heart of Zha’s “world relational aesthetics,” which, on one hand, gauges the pulse of the time, while on the other hand seeking to uncover the underlying relational logic informing this generation of pioneering artists’ intellectual outlook and artistic (...) output. (shrink)

Recently discovered ancient silk and bamboo manuscripts have transformed our understanding of classical Chinese thought. In this book, Wang Zhongjiang closely examines these texts, and by parsing the complex divergence between ancient and modern Chinese records reveals early Chinese philosophy to be much richer and more complex than we ever imagined. As numerous and varied cosmologies sprang up in this cradle of civilization, beliefs in the predictable movements of nature merged with faith in gods and their divine (...) punishments. Slowly, powerful spirits and gods were stripped of their potency as nature's constant order awakened people to the possibility of universal laws, and from those laws was finally born an ideally conceived community, objectively managed, and rationally ordered. (shrink)

The article reveals the features of the formation and functioning of aesthetic research in such two areas of Marxism as Soviet and Chinese. The study identified three key stages in the development of aesthetics in Soviet Marxism – the pre-war (the 1920s and 1930s), late Stalinism and the Khrushchev thaw, and the late period (1970-1980s). It should be noted that in the context of Soviet Marxism, the key tasks were that aesthetics becomes influential and in-demand science, included in the (...) program of "technical progress" and "education of the builder of communism", important ideological, aesthetic, and applied field of philosophy. Therefore, in addition to the fact that purely ideological works were developed within the framework of aesthetic discourse, aesthetics itself in Soviet Marxism was able to develop thanks to contacts with semiotics, psychology, anthropology, cultural history, and sociology. Relying on a selective stream of translations of Western philosophies of art, Soviet aesthetics is beginning to resonate with global trends, which is facilitated by the unspoken consensus of the idea of aesthetics as a part of philosophical and humanitarian knowledge that has its own autonomy. Proved that in China culture and the cultural revolution are inextricably linked with the Marxist projects of critiquing capitalist modernity and building alternative modernity. Aesthetics and culture also were at the center of attention in Chinese Marxist circles. In this respect, the diverse practices and designs of Chinese Marxism are similar to those of Western Marxism or an equally distinct variety of Euro-American Marxist intellectual enterprises. Aesthetic Marxism in China had a dual mission – to criticize the internal contradictions of revolutionary hegemony and to offer a constructive vision of culture in a post-revolutionary society. This is the value of Chinese aesthetic Marxism, the implications of which go beyond China proper in the world of global cultural criticism. Moreover, being non-Western, Chinese aesthetic Marxism deliberately questioned the inherent Eurocentrism of Marxism. If this Eurocentrism is to be challenged and problematized, the questions posed by Chinese aesthetic Marxists cannot be ignored. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Opera as ExperienceScott L. Pratt (bio)There is a long history of debate over what opera is. Since its more or less formal beginning in the sixteenth century as a reconstruction of ancient drama, opera as an art form has been controversial. The received understanding—emphasized by the genre's founders and in periodic efforts at reforming the standards of composition and production—is that opera is musical drama. In his book (...) Opera as Drama, Joseph Kerman reasserted this view as an antidote to what he called "flabby relativism" and in order to be able to determine a set of values that could serve as a basis for opera criticism.1 He argues that while opera is "excellently its own art form," it is one where the story serves as the central framework in terms of which the particularities of the words and music are structured.2 Given a story, the librettist and the composer work to express the narrative dramatically, using words and music to convey not only the events of the story but the emotions bound up in the story. For Kerman, in a successful opera the words express the narrative and the music enriches it by providing the emotional aspect. One can then evaluate an opera in light of the drama expressed in the relation of the narrative to the words and music. Disconnection between the words and music undermine the value of the opera, even if the words adequately express the narrative and the music adequately expresses some emotion.Philosopher Bernard Williams, in his collection On Opera, affirms Kerman's general conception of opera and adds to it two important factors. First, while the words and music are essential to the drama presented, operas are also distinct in that they are staged and not concert pieces. In this case, the details of the staging also contribute to the success of a particular opera (though the variation in staging usually falls out of discussions by [End Page 74] Kerman and Williams of particular operas). Second, Williams makes clear what is implicit in Kerman: "It is a fallacy to argue," Williams says, "that since, in a musical drama, music obviously provides the music, so the words must provide the drama."3 The drama is a product of both the words and the music in relation to the narrative whose meaning provides the frame on which these hang. Opera criticism, from this perspective, focuses on the specific ways in which the text of a given opera expresses or fails to express the drama of the story. Here, the words, since they present the story, are taken as primary. Williams quoted Calzabigi, a librettist and reformer associated with Gluck: "The music has no other function than to express what arises from the words, which are therefore neither smothered by notes nor used to lengthen the spectacle unduly, because it is ridiculous to prolong the sentence 'I love you' (for instance) with a hundred notes when nature has restricted it to three."4In contrast to Kerman's view of opera as drama, philosopher Peter Kivy, in his book Osmin's Rage, proposes a view of opera as music. Despite Kivy's claim that this notion serves as a more or less equivalent alternative to Kerman's, in fact it radically reorganizes how one thinks about opera and how one evaluates particular operas. Kivy's alternative is in part the result of a reading of the history of opera as an art form that began, in effect, as the answer to a philosophical problem: the relation of emotions to dramatic texts. The founders of opera, the Florentine Camerata, asked how, given a particular story—Antigone, Oedipus, or Orpheus, for example—does telling the story express the emotions that are central to the meaning of the story? How does telling the story go from "just the facts" to the felt meaning of tragedy? The answer for the Florentine Camerata was found in their understanding of ancient Greek tragedies, where they concluded that the problem was solved by singing the words. By singing, they argued, the Greeks were able to make the emotional content of the words accessible to the audience.5... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European Philosophy: The Reception and the Exclusion by Selusi AmbrogioCatherine König-Pralong (bio)Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European Philosophy: The Reception and the Exclusion. By Selusi Ambrogio. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. How Modern Historians of Philosophy Drew Their World MapsIn his latest book, Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European (...) Philosophy: The Reception and the Exclusion, Selusi Ambrogio presents an extensive survey of how Indian and Chinese traditions were conceived of and staged in modern European historiography. This study, which surpasses in detail and scope other works devoted to the same topic,1 reconstructs 150 years of philosophical historiography. Otto van Heurn's Barbaricae philosophiae antiquitatum libri duo (published in 1600) included for the first time contemporary and ancient Indian thinkers in the philosophical doxography; at the other end of the time span considered, Jacob Brucker's Historia critica philosophiae (1744) sanctioned the exclusion of Chinese and Indian thinkers by means of a detailed criticism of their pseudo-philosophies. Moreover, Ambrogio makes the choice to focus on the history of philosophy, unlike Étiemble, for example,2 who was interested in philosophy in a broad sense—academic and non-academic—as well as in travel accounts, the writings of the Jesuits, and those of their opponents, among other sources. According to Ambrogio, the histories of philosophy were more representative of "the common European understanding of these civilizations," since they "were not openly written for controversialist aims" (p. 2). Even though one may wonder whether defining philosophy ("what philosophy is and its role"—ibid.) and legitimizing its scholarly practice is a less political or less polemical undertaking than pamphlets, letters, and philosophical essays,3 it is probably true that philosophical historiography produced an effect of objectification or an appearance of neutrality.The author's main thesis is that the exclusion of all non-Greeks or non-Europeans from the history of philosophy does not date from the nineteenth century and Hegel, as is generally thought, but precisely from the moment when Indian and Chinese "civilizations" were considered by historians of philosophy and included in the philosophical historiography: from the beginning of the seventeenth century onwards (p. 3). Applying a segregationist model, modern historians of philosophy developed a dialectic of [End Page 203] identification—the author speaks of "reception"—and exclusion. They defined the European philosophical mind by demarcating it from other ways of thinking, which they situated in place and time on a civilizational world map. Encompassing the world from Europe produced in return processes of definition and situation. Philosophy was established in a territory and identified with a "culture" or "mind" that began to think itself in relation to the rest of the world under the name of Europe.4I will discuss Ambrogio's remarkable work in three moments. First, I will develop some particularly interesting conclusions drawn from the study; namely, they address periodization, the production of cultural categories, and the valorization of theory. I will then discuss the main thesis as well as some problematic issues, before concluding on the subject of a world absent from Ambrogio's book, the Near and Middle East.I. Logic of Time and Cultural TerritorializationAmbrogio's book is composed of three parts that address three successive historiographical models. First, the "perennialist universalism" (p. 57)—represented by, among others, Otto van Heurn, Thomas Burnet, Isaac Vossius, François Bernier, Georg Horn, and François de la Mothe le Vayer—included ancient India and then China in the "prisca theologia"; on the other hand, it described contemporary Indian and Chinese thinkers as "barbarian" philosophers. In this constellation, Buddhism began to function as the negative part of Oriental thought. According to the Jesuits, it had polluted and corrupted the original Chinese wisdom, often identified with Confucianism.The second model constructed an "Atheistic Asia," which was used either as a positive anthropological image (for example in Pierre Bayle), or as a negative foil for Lutheran philosophy and theology (for example in Johann Franz Buddeus). In the pages he dedicates to these endeavors, Ambrogio often moves away from philosophical doxography, represented by André-Fran... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 112-118 [Access article in PDF] Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization, by David Clarke. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2002, 240 pp. Paper. The issue of identity is a "vicious" circle in relation to Hong Kong's return to China in 1997. The more one talks about it, the more it is to be talked about as if it is a phenomenon (...) at a very special moment. But isn't not talking about Hong Kong identity in a certain period of time also a "vicious" circle, in which the lack of noise invites further silence?David Clarke's Hong Kong Art is, in a sense, an initiation of Hong Kong art as a "vicious" circle. In this sense, a concrete affinity between a text and its subject matter is significantly established. This is one of the ideals, potentials, and powers of all books written for the sake of being read and having actual effect. In this respect, this "vicious" circle is not vicious in a negative sense. It is through such interactivities that a book establishes a positive link with its subject matter.Hong Kong Art investigates "a particular historical moment in which HongKong art came into its own" (p. 10) and dwells upon the "local-ness of recent Hong Kong art" (p. 8). Nevertheless, Clarke deliberately avoids introducing a chronological survey of "Hong Kong art history as a whole" (p. 10). His solid research draws on the colloquial meanings of Hong Kong art in connection with the dynamics among different languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, and English), local receptions of art as reflected in local media, as well as backgrounds of artists, artworks, and political and cultural developments, among others. All this is necessary for a book that examines theemergence of Hong Kong identity. This is the case especiallyas "[n]o adequate survey exists of Hong Kong art as a whole," albeit surveying Hong Kong art as a whole is not the book's objective. Clarke's meta-survey about surveys on Hong Kong art is given in an endnote, which I also quote here in a note for the reader's reference. "The present author's Art and Place: Essays on Art from a Hong KongPerspective (Hong Kong, 1996) attempts to give a picture of the Hong Kong art world in the period immediately prior to the one covered by this text, and includes [End Page 112] some discussion of art from earlier periods as well. Petra Hinterthür'sModern Art in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1985) attempts a brief survey, but is of course unable to throw light on more recent developments. A chronology of Hong Kong art development from 1922 to 1994 is given in Hong Kong Artists. Volume 1 (Hong Kong, 1995), pp. 21-32. A rather patchy and sometimes imprecise chronology of Hong Kong artistic events from 1967 to 1998 isgiven in Gao Minglu, ed., Inside Out: New Chinese Art (Berkeley, 1998), pp. 207-11. The latter chronology also covers political and other broader historical events of the period. A valuable resource (in Chinese) for research on the early period of Hong Kong art is provided by Edwin Lai and Jack Lee, 'A Chronology of Visual Arts Activities in Hong Kong, 1900-1930,' in Besides: A Journal of Art History and Criticism 1 (1997): 135-230" (p. 211).With regard to the book's "ideal" link with its subject matter, I will now discuss the book's actualization of what it sets out to examine. The inadequacy of surveys on Hong Kong art (whether or not as a whole) manifests the relative tranquility in acknowledging that Hong Kong art is distinct. In view of this, the book itself is an intervention that (further) actualizes what it talks about. This is the case particularly in light of its predecessors' "vicious" circle of "silence," let alone those simplifications reducing Hong Kong art to either a Westernized product or a Chinese branch.The "Introduction" of Hong Kong Art begins with a critique of Western art history practices such as Gardner's... (shrink)

Hegel’s famous criticism of Laozi in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, has been a center of controversy in comparative philosophy. It is often regarded as an example of the unfair treatment of Chinese philosophy by its Western counterpart, that the West is measuring the East according to its own standard, imposing on the latter its understanding of what philosophy should be, passing judgment on China that it has no mature philosophy, or, if it has, that it (...) is still in an unsophisticated, primitive stage. However, there has been little serious and detailed discussion about Hegel’s argument in this important and representative document in the dialogue between Western and Chinese philosophy. Most of the .. (shrink)

The discussion develops Edward Said's thesis of orientialism. Said approached "orientalism" as a construction of Asia by Europeans, and a problem in Euro-American modernity. This essay argues that, from the beginning, Asians participated in the construction of the orient, and that orientalism therefore should be viewed as a problem in Asian modernities as well. The essay utilizes Mary Louise Pratt's idea of "contact zones" to argue that orientalism was a product of the circulation of Euro-American and Asian intellectuals in these (...) contact zones, or borderlands. While orientalism has been very much implicated in power relations between Euro-America and Asia, the question of power nevertheless should be separated analytically from the construction of orientalism. In support of this argument, the essay points to the contemporary "self-orientalization" of Asian intellectuals, which is a manifestation not of powerlessness but newly-acquired power. (shrink)

The Chinese parallel to the Pali-Kutadantasutta marks one of the major turning points in Old Indian history of ideas: the transition from magic to ethics. In this sermon, the Buddha rejects the Vedic animal sacrifice and re-interprets it according to Buddhist ethics. He preaches sacrifices in a new sense of the word: the sacrifice of giving alms to Buddhist monks, or, even better, of building monasteries, of converting to Buddhism as a Buddhist layman, of obeying the five Buddhist (...) rules for laymen, or - finally and most meritorious - becoming a Buddhist monk. In Beginnings of Buddhist Ethics, Konrad Meisig translates the Buddhist Chinese text for the first time and contrasts it in synopsis with the Pali. The text is given in the original characters along with the Pinyin transcription. The text-critical introduction deals with the variae lectiones both of the Chinese and the Pali; the final analysis focuses on the literary stratification and criticism of forms, thus reconstructing the archetypical nucleus of the Kutadantasutta."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Discusses songs by the troubadours, trouvères, and Guillaume de Machaut, performed live and on the page, in the context of antique, late antique, and medieval thought and poetic practice and in the light of later opera. Topics include cosmology, education, astronomy, breath, beasts, monsters, hybridity, imagination, life, and death.

Hengxian: stages of cosmic unfolding -- Taiyi shengshui: textual structure and conceptual layers -- Fanwu liuxing: from oneness to multiplicity -- Huangdi sijing: governing through oneness -- Laozi: "Dao models itself" -- Laozi: "a great vessel" -- Han Laozi: variants and new readings.

The object of the study is the image of an emaciated horse in Chinese culture. It represents a real artistic phenomenon, serving as a reflection of the self-perception of authors who are faced with a sense of alienation and injustice, isolation from society, and the inability to get help. The subject is the image of thin horses in the painting by the Italian Catholic artist Giuseppe Castiglione, who arrived in China for missionary work. His stay in China coincided with (...) a period of strong rejection of Catholicism in the country. The article pays special attention to the use of the image of a skinny horse as a metaphor, a veiled way to convey the subjective perception of the situation at the Qing court. The emaciated animal is considered by the author both as a visual phenomenon enriching the variety of characters in the paintings, and as a reflection of philosophical reasoning about the relationship between man and society. Formal-stylistic and structural-semantic types of analysis became the leading research methods. With their help, the author studied the compositional structure, coloristic features and semantic aspects of the fragments of the painting analyzed in the article by Giuseppe Castiglione. The scientific novelty of the research is due to the small number of thematic publications in Russian art history. One can find scientific works on Chinese culture devoted either to the image of horses in general, or taking into account exclusively the work of Giuseppe Castiglione. Combining the analysis of the image of an exhausted horse as such and the analysis of the painting "A Hundred Horses", the author closed the gap in a highly specialized art criticism problem, arguing the theses put forward with biographical data about the artist and historical references. New information deepens knowledge about the cultural characteristics of the Chinese people and can serve as an aid for further research by art historians. The author comes to several conclusions. First, he discovers the specific philosophical significance of the image of an emaciated horse. Secondly, it notes its stability in various creative figures. Thirdly, he reveals the peculiarities of the fate of Giuseppe Castiglione using the example of "Hundreds of Horses". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 167-189 [Access article in PDF] An Interfaith Dialogue between the Chinese Buddhist Leader Taixu and Christians Darui LongHarvard University 1 Introduction On June 21, 1938, a Buddhist monk, the Venerable Taixu (1889-1947), delivered a speech at West China Union University. The interesting title of this speech, which was delivered at the request of University President Dr. Zhang Linggao 2 and Vice President Dryden Phelps, (...) was "China needs Christianity and Europe and America need Buddhism." 3 It might seem surprising that the Venerable Taixu, a Chinese Buddhist leader, would give a speech calling for the propagation of Christianity in China. More plausible, perhaps, would have been for him to insist on the spread of his own religion. This paper will explore the background behind this apparent contradiction.Taixu was one of the most important Buddhist figures in the history of modern China. As a pained and sympathetic witness to the untold sufferings of the Chinese people, he advocated reform of Buddhism as a response to imperialist invasions and the widespread corruption that existed not only among contemporary government officials, but also among Chinese Buddhists themselves. As part of his plan, he outlined the reorganization of the Sangha 4 system in China, seeking to bring Buddhism up to date by making it scientific and socially conscious, thereby eliciting respect from intellectuals and youth alike. This worthy goal could, in his view, only be achieved if the monastic system was cleansed of commercialism and superstition. His forty-year crusade failed, however, as much because of strong resistance from Chinese Buddhists themselves as from the incessant warfare and resulting social disorder. Exhausted from his many labors, he died in 1947, by which time he had barely succeeded in winning control of the Chinese Buddhist Association.After his death, Buddhist scholars and practitioners alike began to heap praises on him for his life-long, but unsuccessful, efforts to reform and reorganize the Chinese Buddhist Sangha system. His disciples published Taixu dashi quanshu (the Complete Works of the Venerable Taixu) in 1950. These authors, owing to their close association with Taixu, recorded his activities quite uncritically. One of Taixu's followers even referred to him as the Martin Luther of modern Chinese Buddhism. 5 [End Page 167]In recent years, scholars in the People's Republic of China have published books on the development of modern Chinese Buddhism and its relationship to society. Most of them describe positively Taixu's contributions and thoughts in this area. At least six books about modern Chinese Buddhism have come out since 1989. 6 For some reason, these scholars have shown little disagreement in the way they have recorded his life and activities, his thoughts, and his role in the development of modern Chinese Buddhism. There are other aspects to the story, however, generally neglected, that deal with negative comments, criticism, and unfavorable views of his personal shortcomings.In light of the generally favorable treatment he has received, it is difficult to find records that support alternative interpretations of the Venerable Taixu's legacy. Chinese scholars have ignored the negative responses from participants at the gathering where Taixu delivered his speech. The late Professor Holmes Welch, though, has made both positive and negative comments in his book The Revival of Chinese Buddhism which was published in 1968. 7More than sixty years have elapsed since Taixu's speech. It seems unlikely that--at the time of its delivery--Taixu realized that he was calling for a kind of interfaith dialogue between Chinese Buddhism and Christianity. The term "interfaith dialogue" refers to a discussion that occurs between persons or groups belonging to different religions. In the theological climate of the 1960s and 1970s, this type of dialogue was quite frequent. Taixu, it now appears, seemed to realize the importance of adopting some elements from Christianity into Chinese Buddhism. For example, he fully intended to introduce Christian pastoral training into his program of Chinese Buddhist reform. 8 Today, we still have many questions. To what extent did Taixu succeed in his reforms? What were his most significant... (shrink)

The genre of fable tends to be overlooked in the study of Korean literary history on the ground that the genre seems too archaic to reflect the aesthetic standards established in the modern European novel, in which the focus lies in the realistic representation of the individual or contemporary society. However, the genre was not completely abandoned by modern Korean writers. Few critics have noted the continuing role played by the rich Korean fable tradition, which eventually made the reinvention (...) of the genre in the mass media possible. In particular, it is worth noting that there was the emergence of a new subgenre of fable in the late nineteenth century: that is, fabulous court case fiction, which is quite distinct from the Chinese literary tradition that had underprivileged imaginative narrative texts under the absolute domination of Confucian historiography. The genre of fabulous court case fiction makes us reconsider the plurality of narrative forms and various narrative functions. In this study, I examine how imaginative narrative texts such as fables simultaneously pursue the pleasure of storytelling and the purposes of both moral and specialized education. (shrink)