Mighty Opposites: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of ChinaThis book transcends the boundaries of Chinese studies and scholarship on Western literature and critical theory, bringing together the two fields in a way that questions both the application of Western theory to Chinese materials and the resistance to theory in sinological scholarship. Recognizing that social and historical reality is external to discourse and that knowledge has an inevitable ethical import, the author argues for the importance of reality and lived experience in understanding a culture as well as the moral responsibility of such understanding. The book examines the discrepancies between various Western representations of China and the reality of China; inquires into the cultural, historical, and political contexts within which such discrepancies arise; and points out the distortion of reality in the tendency toward cultural dichotomies, the tendency to view China as the conceptual opposite of the West. From a comparison of biblical exegesis and commentaries on the Confucian classics to the contemporary assimilation of Western critical theories in China, this book discusses a wide range of topics that situates the understanding of China and Chinese literature and culture in the broad perspective of East-West comparative studies. It studies not only the Confucian tradition, modern Chinese literature, and the students' movement for democracy in China, but also such Western topics as Origen and biblical interpretation, Montaigne and cultural critique, Jameson and postmodern theory, and the reception of Said's Orientalism in China. |
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Mighty Opposites: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study ... Longxi Zhang No preview available - 1998 |
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aesthetic alien allegorical ancient argues argument barbarian Barthes Beijing Borges cannibals century China Chinese culture Chinese intellectuals Chinese language Chinese literature Chinese poetry Christian civilization concept Confucian contemporary context cultural and political cultural critique cultural difference Cultural Revolution debate democracy dichotomy discourse Dushu East essay experience foreign Foucault Greek Hellenism hermeneutic human Ibid ideas ideological interpretation Jameson Jesuit Jewish knowledge Leibniz Levinas literal literary Liu Kang Liu Zaifu Lu Xun Lyotard mainland Mao's Maoism meaning Mencius metaphor modern Chinese Montaigne Montaigne's myth nature nese non-Western one's opposition Orientalism original Owen philosophical poem postism postmod postmodern postmodernist question radical reading reality rhetoric River Elegy Said's says scholars sense shiji social spiritual Su Xiaokang theoretical things thinking Third World Third World criticism Tiananmen tion Todorov tradition trans ture understanding University Press values West Western theory words writing Xun's Zhang Zhuangzi