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1
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A Study of Wang Sihuai’s Taijitushuo lun
This paper aims to analyze Wang Sihuai’s Taijitusuo lun
(On the Explanations of the Diagram of Supreme Ultimate)
to understand Wang’s thoughts against the background of
the Ming-Qing intellectual history. The first part of
the paper discusses the main purpose of Wang’s composing
this text, which is to distinguish “true” Confucianism
from Daoism, Buddhism, and Song-Ming Confucianism. Wang
Sihuai believed Taijitu and Taijitu shuo belong to
Taoist works and betrayed the meaning of the Yijing (The
Book of Changes). Wang’s opinions followed those of Lu
Jiushao and Lu Jiuyuan and corresponded with the new
wave of criticizing the Diagram of Taiji in the Jiangnan
area during the early Qing period. In the second part,
the paper elaborates Wang Sihuai’s thoughts from four
aspects, which are (1) the fundamental difference
between being and non-being, (2) the concepts of life,
death, spirit, and ghost, (3) his ideas about human
nature, the nature of myriad things, and the Mandate of
Heaven, (4) the ethical teachings by Confucian sages.
Finally, this paper also traces the friendship between
Wang Sihuai and the Confucian Catholic Zhang Xingyao,
and tries to explain why Zhang paid compliments to Wang
Sihuai and his Taijitusuo lun by comparing their works.
This also leads us to see more about the interactions
between Confucianism and Christianity in 17th-century
China.
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Lu, Miaw-fen
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2
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Bibliographical Research on Yuan Mei’s Suiyuan Shihua
Suiyuan Shihua by Yuan Mei (1716-1798) is among the most
popular and widely circulated poetry collections in late
imperial China. There are over 60 different Qing dynasty
editions, but the complex variations between them have not
yet been fully investigated. This study compares the
content and format of approximately 40 editions of Suiyuan
Shihua in the attempt to understand the process of its
editing and publishing. It resulted in the discovery of
several pirated editions and further understanding of the
chronological order of various editions as well as their
connection to each other. This paper also discusses how
Yuan Mei established a successful “business model” by
using his social status as a cultural celebrity who had
control of the poetry community’s publishing platform.
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Huang, Yi-long
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3
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The Images of “Body” and “Nation” in Late-Qing
Fiction
This essay investigates the corresponding pattern of
“body” and “nation” in late-Qing fiction. Firstly, by
examining the scheme of the body’s split and
dehumanization, this study discusses how late-Qing
writers made use of this kind of scheme to reflect their
thought on the situation of the empire, which was
compared to an exhausted and ill “human body.” Secondly,
it points out that before the May Forth writers made use
of “medical” narrative, late-Qing writers had already
used it to manifest their patriotic perspective of
national reform. Methods of comparison between an ill
body and the descending nation were commonly used. By
producing the imagery of an ill body undergoing medical
treatment or surgery, late-Qing writers projected their
expectation of a promising nation after reformation.
Finally, this study analyses how late-Qing fiction
showed forth a narrative mode of “construction of
spirit” by making use of a distinct technique of
contrast. This technique represents late-Qing people’s
eagerness for a new national and eethnic spirit.
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Guan, Kean-fung
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4
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Who should not be counted as Renaissance humanists?
This paper aims to
clarify why Paul Oskar Kristeller’s discourse on
Renaissance humanism has been challenged in recent
Renaissance scholarship. By comparing Kristeller’s theses
with those of Georg Voigt and Jacob Burckhardt separately,
the first part of this paper focuses on how Kristeller
initiated a “humanistic turn” in the Renaissance studies
after his emigration to the USA. Subsequently, this paper
examines the reason why Kristeller put the Burckhardtian
question: “Who should not be counted as Renaissance
humanists?” as his major concern to distinguish
Renaissance “humanists” from “philosophers.” The final
part of this paper discusses how to modify Kristeller’s
one-sided definitions of the Renaissance humanists and
humanism by understanding the difficulties in interpreting
the so-called “key points” in the manifest historical
turns as continuities, breakthroughs, or transitions.
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Hua, Yih-fen
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