Manufacturing Confucianism : Chinese traditions & universal civilization / Lionel M. Jensen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jensen, Lionel M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jesuits--China.

Jesuits.

Confucianism.

Confucianism--Relations--Christianity.

Philosophy, Confucian.

China--Civilization--Western influences.

China.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (469 pages)

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Could it be that the familiar and beloved figure of Confucius was invented by Jesuit priests? In Manufacturing Confucianism, Lionel M. Jensen reveals this very fact, demonstrating how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Western missionaries used translations of the ancient ru tradition to invent the presumably historical figure who has since been globally celebrated as philosopher, prophet, statesman, wise man, and saint.Tracing the history of the Jesuits’ invention of Confucius and of themselves as native defenders of Confucius’s teaching, Jensen reconstructs the cultural consequences of the encounter between the West and China. For the West, a principal outcome of this encounter was the reconciliation of empirical investigation and theology on the eve of the scientific revolution. Jensen also explains how Chinese intellectuals in the early twentieth century fashioned a new cosmopolitan Chinese culture through reliance on the Jesuits’ Confucius and Confucianism. Challenging both previous scholarship and widespread belief, Jensen uses European letters and memoirs, Christian histories and catechisms written in Chinese, translations and commentaries on the Sishu, and a Latin summary of Chinese culture known as the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus to argue that the national self-consciousness of Europe and China was bred from a cultural ecumenism wherein both were equal contributors.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Note

Chronology

Introduction: Confucius, Kongzi, and the Modern Imagination

PART ONE THE MANUFACTURE OF CONFUCIUS AND CONFUCIANISM

1. The Jesuits, Confucius, and the Chinese

2. There and Back Again: The Jesuits and Their Texts in China and Europe

Interlude: The Meaning and End of Confucianism A Meditation on Conceptual Dependence

PART TWO MAKING SENSE OF RU AND MAKING UP KONGZI

3. Ancient Texts, Modern Narratives: Nationalism, Archaism, and the Reinvention of Ru

4. Particular Is Universal: Hu Shi, Ru, and the Chinese Transcendence of Nationalism

Epilogue: At Century's End-Ecumenical Nativism and the Economy of Delight

Glossary

Notes

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (pages [379]-420) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780822320470

0822320479

9780822399582

082239958X

OCLC:

891395546