Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan

Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan PDF Author: Wai-ming Ng
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438473087
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Pioneering study of the localization of Chinese culture in early modern Japan, using legends, classics, and historical terms as case studies. While current scholarship on Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868) tends to see China as either a model or “the Other,” Wai-ming Ng’s pioneering and ambitious study offers a new perspective by suggesting that Chinese culture also functioned as a collection of “cultural building blocks” that were selectively introduced and then modified to fit into the Japanese tradition. Chinese terms and forms survived, but the substance and the spirit were made Japanese. This borrowing of Chinese terms and forms to express Japanese ideas and feelings could result in the same things having different meanings in China and Japan, and this process can be observed in the ways in which Tokugawa Japanese reinterpreted Chinese legends, Confucian classics, and historical terms. Ng breaks down the longstanding dichotomies between model and “the other,” civilization and barbarism, as well as center and periphery that have been used to define Sino-Japanese cultural exchange. He argues that Japanese culture was by no means merely an extended version of Chinese culture, and Japan’s uses and interpretations of Chinese elements were not simply deviations from the original teachings. By replacing a Sinocentric perspective with a cross-cultural one, Ng’s study represents a step forward in the study of Tokugawa intellectual history. Wai-ming Ng is Professor of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture.

Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan

Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan PDF Author: Wai-ming Ng
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438473087
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book

Book Description
Pioneering study of the localization of Chinese culture in early modern Japan, using legends, classics, and historical terms as case studies. While current scholarship on Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868) tends to see China as either a model or “the Other,” Wai-ming Ng’s pioneering and ambitious study offers a new perspective by suggesting that Chinese culture also functioned as a collection of “cultural building blocks” that were selectively introduced and then modified to fit into the Japanese tradition. Chinese terms and forms survived, but the substance and the spirit were made Japanese. This borrowing of Chinese terms and forms to express Japanese ideas and feelings could result in the same things having different meanings in China and Japan, and this process can be observed in the ways in which Tokugawa Japanese reinterpreted Chinese legends, Confucian classics, and historical terms. Ng breaks down the longstanding dichotomies between model and “the other,” civilization and barbarism, as well as center and periphery that have been used to define Sino-Japanese cultural exchange. He argues that Japanese culture was by no means merely an extended version of Chinese culture, and Japan’s uses and interpretations of Chinese elements were not simply deviations from the original teachings. By replacing a Sinocentric perspective with a cross-cultural one, Ng’s study represents a step forward in the study of Tokugawa intellectual history. Wai-ming Ng is Professor of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture.

Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan

Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan PDF Author: Wai-ming Ng
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438473079
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Pioneering study of the localization of Chinese culture in early modern Japan, using legends, classics, and historical terms as case studies. While current scholarship on Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868) tends to see China as either a model or “the Other,” Wai-ming Ng’s pioneering and ambitious study offers a new perspective by suggesting that Chinese culture also functioned as a collection of “cultural building blocks” that were selectively introduced and then modified to fit into the Japanese tradition. Chinese terms and forms survived, but the substance and the spirit were made Japanese. This borrowing of Chinese terms and forms to express Japanese ideas and feelings could result in the same things having different meanings in China and Japan, and this process can be observed in the ways in which Tokugawa Japanese reinterpreted Chinese legends, Confucian classics, and historical terms. Ng breaks down the longstanding dichotomies between model and “the Other,” civilization and barbarism, as well as center and periphery that have been used to define Sino-Japanese cultural exchange. He argues that Japanese culture was by no means merely an extended version of Chinese culture, and Japan’s uses and interpretations of Chinese elements were not simply deviations from the original teachings. By replacing a Sinocentric perspective with a cross-cultural one, Ng’s study represents a step forward in the study of Tokugawa intellectual history. “What the author has done with great success is to break down the longstanding dichotomies that have been established in prior scholarship between center and margins, self and ‘other,’ empire and tributary states, civilization and barbarism, and so forth, treating China and Japan on equal terms. An impressive achievement.” — Richard J. Smith, author of The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture

China in the Tokugawa World

China in the Tokugawa World PDF Author: Marius B. Jansen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674117532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
This engaging book challenges the traditional notion that Japan was an isolated nation cut off from the outside world in the early modern era. This familiar story of seclusion, argues master historian Marius B. Jansen, results from viewing the period solely in terms of Japan's ties with the West, at the expense of its relationship with closer Asian neighbors. Taking as his focus the port of Nagasaki and its thriving trade with China in the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, Jansen not only corrects this misperception but offers an important analysis of the impact of the China trade on Japan's cultural, economic, and political life. Creating a vivid portrait of a city that lived on and for foreign trade, the author details Nagasaki's pivotal role in importing luxury goods for a growing Japanese market whose elite wanted more of everything that ships from China could bring. Silk, sugar, and ginseng were among the cargoes brought to Nagasaki as well as books that, by the late Tokugawa period, signaled the dangers of Western expansionism. The junks from China brought people as well as goods, and the author provides clear evidence of the influence of Chinese expatriates and visitors on Japanese religion, law, and art. Japan's intellectuals prided themselves on their full participation in the cultural milieu of the continental mainland, and for them China represented an ideal land of sages and tranquility. But gradually China came to represent, instead, a metaphor for the "other", as Japan's quest for a national identity intensified. Among the Japanese, a new image of their nation was beginning to emerge: a Japan superior to Asia in general and to China in particular.

The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World

The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World PDF Author: Benjamin Wai-ming Ng
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9813362286
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This book represents an ambitious effort to bring leading Yijing scholars together to examine the globalisation and localisation of the 'Book of Changes' from cross-cultural and comparative perspectives. It focuses on how the Yijing has been used to support ideologies, converted into knowledge, and assimilated into global cultures in the modern period, transported from the Sinosphere to British, American and French cultural traditions, travelling from East Asia to Europe and the United States. The book provides conceptualised narratives and cross-cultural analyses of the global popularisation and local assimilation of the Yijing, highlighting the transformation and application of the Yijing in different cultural traditions, and demonstrating how it acquired different meanings and took on different roles in the context of a global setting. In presenting a novel contribution to understandings of the multifaceted nature of the Yijing, this book is essential reading for scholars and students interested in the 'Classic of Changes'. It is also a useful reference for those studying Chinese culture, Asian philosophy, East Asian studies, and translation studies.

The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan

The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan PDF Author: Ayelet Zohar
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004518347
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
In The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan, Ayelet Zohar addresses issues of Orientalism, colonialism, and exoticism in modern Japan, through images of camels – the epitome of Otherness, and a metonymy for Asia in the Japanese imagination.

Embodying Antiracist Christianity

Embodying Antiracist Christianity PDF Author: Keun-joo Christine Pae
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031372646
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
At a moment of notably rising levels of anti-Asian hate, this book offers antiracist resources informed by Asian/North American feminist theology and biblical scholarship. Although there exist scholarly books and articles on Asian American theology (broadly defined) have proliferated in response to the current ethical, political, and cultural environment have been prolific, there have been few concerted efforts to interrogate or dismantle anti-Asian racism inseparable from anti-black racism, and white settler colonialism that have often undermined the communal spirit and livelihood of Christian churches in the current political climate. In the current political climate, COVID-related anti-Asian hate and racial conflict, which all intersect with gender and sexuality-based violence, require theological, moral, and political inquiries. Hence, this book notes the current paucity of work with critical discussions on the multiple facets of racism from Asian American feminist theological perspectives. Contributors deepen the inter/transdisciplinary approaches concerning how to dismantle racist theological teachings, biblical interpretations, liturgical presentations, and the Christian church’s leadership structure.

Crossing Boundaries and Confounding Identity

Crossing Boundaries and Confounding Identity PDF Author: Cheryl C. D. Hughes
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438492162
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Crossing Borders and Confounding Identity advances our understanding of the diversity of Chinese women's experiences and achievements, from the Han Dynasty to the present. With a particular emphasis on literature and the arts, the chapters offer insights into the work of current Chinese women artists as well as literary, historical, and cultural portrayals of women and women's issues. Taken together, they provide new perspectives on Chinese women, their lived experiences and fictional representations, across a broad spectrum of literature, theater, film, and the visual arts. Accessible to nonspecialists and general readers, this book will also be a valuable resource for faculty who teach Asian studies courses in history and in the humanities, as well as for students in interdisciplinary Asian studies courses.

Imagining Harmony

Imagining Harmony PDF Author: Peter Flueckiger
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804776393
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Many intellectuals in eighteenth-century Japan valued classical poetry in either Chinese or Japanese for its expression of unadulterated human sentiments. They also saw such poetry as a distillation of the language and aesthetic values of ancient China and Japan, which offered models of the good government and social harmony lacking in their time. By studying the poetry of the past and composing new poetry emulating its style, they believed it possible to reform their own society. Imagining Harmony focuses on the development of these ideas in the life and work of Ogyu Sorai, the most influential Confucian philosopher of the eighteenth century, and that of his key disciples and critics. This study contends that the literary thought of these figures needs to be understood not just for what it has to say about the composition of poetry but as a form of political and philosophical discourse. Unlike other scholars of this literature, Peter Flueckiger argues that the increased valorization of human emotions in eighteenth-century literary thought went hand in hand with new demands for how emotions were to be regulated and socialized, and that literary and political thought of the time were thus not at odds but inextricably linked.

Newsletter, East Asian Art and Archaeology

Newsletter, East Asian Art and Archaeology PDF Author:
Publisher: UM Libraries
ISBN:
Category : Art, East Asian
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description


Tokugawa Confucian Education

Tokugawa Confucian Education PDF Author: Marleen Kassel
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791428078
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Presents the philosophy and values of Hirose Tanso, a scholar, educator, and poet whose well-articulated educational program was partly responsible for the relative ease with which Japan emerged from hundreds of years of self-imposed isolation and became a powerful modern nation.