Publications on the Reception of the Zhuangzi
Articles, Monographs and Edited Volumes
Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾 北斎, A Philosopher Watching a Pair of Butterflies, from The Picture Book of Realistic Paintings of Hokusai (Hokusai shashin gafu 北斎写真画譜), Detail, 1809-1819, Color woodblock; album sheet. 22.8 x 33.9 cm, Frederick W. Gookin Collection, Art Institute Chicago, Ref. No. 1939.1186.
Abstract: Thus far, the study of early China and its texts is dominated by originalist approaches that try to excavate the authentic meaning of the classics. In this article, I promote the idea that a shift in focus from the intentions of the authors to the readers’ concrete responses could meaningfully accompany our research on the classics’ “original” meaning. Beyond merely illuminating the cul‐ tural and intellectual environments in which the various receptions were produced, such research on the classics’ myriad interpretations could also serve as a postcolonial catalyst, helping us identify field‐specific trends and reading strategies that, often unnoticed, impact our understandings of early Chinese texts. In other words, reception history would not only give us insights into the history of early Chinese classics and the variegated worlds they inhabited. It would also help us illuminate and reflect upon the ways we researchers shape and preconfigure our visions of premodern China and its texts. Full version may be accessed via link above.
Student Projects Related to the Zhuangzi
Charles Hart, Reading Response to Death and Dying in the Zhuangzi, 2018, Ink on Paper. The Zhuangzi, A Daoist Classic, Spring 2018, Washington University in St. Louis.
In my class on the Zhuangzi’s multimedia reception, I ask the students to create a comic strip based on one of its anecdotes. This exercise forces the students to think about how different media can express narratives or concepts in distinct ways. In other words, it is an exercise in critical thought that invites the students to rethink their interpretations through a new medium while situating their work in the long history of artistic reworkings of the Zhuangzi. In the link above, one may find a selection of such Zhuangzi comics my students created at Washington University in St. Louis and Reed College.
Organized Panels at Professional Conferences
Anonymous, Zhuangzi Dreaming of a Butterfly (Zhuangzi meng hudie 莊子夢蝴蝶), Qing Dynasty, Ink on Silk. Attributed to Qian Xuan 錢選 (late 13th c.), Gift of Charles Lang Freer. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection, F1911.156h.
Since the 1980’s, scholars in the West have demonstrated a heightened interest in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi 莊子. Based on a problematic division of early Chinese history into a glorious time of philosophy and a religious period of intellectual decline separated by the rise and fall of the Han 漢 (206 BCE – 220 CE) dynasty, scholars tended to prematurely categorize the Zhuangzi as a philosophical text while bearing largely on Guo Xiang’s 郭象 (d. 312 CE) influential commentary. Although such treatments have yielded excellent contributions to our philosophical understanding of this eminent scripture, they have also limited our engagement with it. In the two panels organized for the annual conferences of the American Academy of Religions (AAR) in Baltimore (2013) and San Antonio (2016), we presented rather disregarded receptions from the Lüshi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋, Huainanzi 淮南子, Li Yuanzhuo 李元卓 (fl. 12th c.), Song Literati painting theory, Hanshan Deqing 憨山德清 (1546 – 1623), Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 (1868-1936) and Su Jiarong 蘇甲榮 (1895 – 1946), shedding some light on the Daoist classic’s multifarious reception history.