Contextualising ‘Sin’ in Chinese Culture: A Historian's Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danny Hsu
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Actual Practice ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Christian Teaching ◽  
Practice Perspective ◽  
History Of

Is the Christian teaching on sin a ‘stumbling block’ to Chinese accepting Christianity? This paper critiques the notion that Chinese have difficulty comprehending ‘sin’ because of the culture's long-standing belief in the humanistic potential for self-perfection without any reference to the divine. This view of Chinese culture has been too narrow and does not account for the fact that Chinese religious traditions have always had at their disposal a wide variety of resources to comprehend the Christian concept of sin. Incorporating a history-of-practice perspective can contribute to a more productive balance between the representation of Chinese culture and its actual practice and avoid the current tendency to posit Western theology against a narrowly constructed and idealised version of Chinese culture that is severed from both historical and present-day realities.

A Long, Long Way

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Garrett
Keyword(s):  
People Of Color ◽  
Racial Reconciliation ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Race And Culture

Hollywood films are perhaps the most powerful storytellers in American history, and their depiction of race and culture has helped to shape the way people around the world respond to race and prejudice. Over the past one hundred years, films have moved from the radically prejudiced views of people of color to the depiction of people of color by writers and filmmakers from within those cultures. In the process, we begin to see how films have depicted negative versions of people outside the white mainstream, and how film might become a vehicle for racial reconciliation. Religious traditions offer powerful correctives to our cultural narratives, and this work incorporates both narrative truth-telling and religious truth-telling as we consider race and film and work toward reconciliation. By exploring the hundred-year period from The Birth of a Nation to Get Out, this work acknowledges the racist history of America and offers the possibility of hope for the future.

Teaching and Researching American Literature and American Realism in China

2019 ◽  
pp. 647-663
Author(s):  
Yuping Wang
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking

The study and teaching of American literature and American realism in China mirrored the social development and cultural transformation in China and was often fueled by political incentives. This chapter examines the cultural and political forces affecting the reception of American literature in different stages of Chinese history and investigates the teaching of American literature and of American realism in Chinese university classrooms. Different from the teaching of American literature in English-speaking countries, the American literature course in China serves a twofold purpose: to provide cultural nutrient for the cultivation of a broader mind by highlighting the cultural norms and rubrics in literature and to promote students’ language proficiency by a careful study of the text and formal elements of literary works. The history of the Chinese reception of American literature thus reflects the resilience and openness of Chinese culture in its negotiation with foreign cultures.

TANG JIANPING'S OPERA "THE DAWNS HERE ARE QUIET": HISTORY OF CREATION AND SPECIFICS OF MUSICAL DRAMATURGY

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-167
Author(s):  
Wang Kaidi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Gender Disparity ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Chinese Opera ◽  
Traditional Chinese Culture ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Russian Identity

The article is devoted to the Opera "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" by the Chinese composer Tang Jianping based on the same-named novel by Boris Vasilyev. The theme of the Great Patriotic War, which for the first time became the plot of the Chinese Opera, was in tune with the theme of the Chinese Resistance to the Japanese Invasion. The composition synthesizes the characteristics of the European opera type in its Russified version, which was reflected in the heroic and epic dramaturgy and multi-part musical text. Russian folklore allusions, quasi- quotes from Russian operas, military-patriotic and Soviet mass songs reflect the author's method. The integrity of musical dramaturgy was given by the leitmotif, which became the main marker of Russian identity in the Opera. The Opera lacks a naturalistic embodiment of the War, and depicts the enemy in a conventional, symbolic way, in the form of unnamed but recognizable figures. The creators of the play sought to reveal the barbaric essence of the War, its anti-human character, to present the psychological state of the heroes and the manifestation of their human nature. The theme of the death of young girls gave a special perspective to the Opera, which is particularly acute in China due to gender disparity. The concept of the composer, director and screenwriter reflects the ideological constants of traditional Chinese culture, which gave the Opera an internal subtext.

Notes on Professor Karlgren's System for Dating Chinese Bronzes

1936 ◽  
Vol 68 (03) ◽  
pp. 463-473
Author(s):  
Herrlee Glessner Creel
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oracle Bones

The pre-Confucian period has come, during the last decade, to occupy a central place in the attention of students of the history of Chinese culture. Research on the oracle bones, scientific excavations at Anyang and elsewhere, and other investigations and discoveries have not served merely to throw light on the civilization of late Shang and early Chou times. They have also shown us that those periods saw the laying of the foundations of the whole structure of Chinese culture, as it has persisted even to our own day, so that to understand them is no mere concern of antiquarians, but a vital necessity for any deep understanding of the currents of Chinese history.

scholarly journals Gods and Demons, Beauties and Zombies: through the pages of Chinese educational magazine “Cultural Heritage of China”

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 214-231
Author(s):  
Elina A. Sarakaeva
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Sensitive Question ◽  
History Of

This work reviews the Chinese cultural and mass-educational magazine “Cultural Heritage of China” going through several issues of the magazine - those of 2016, 2017 and 2020 years. The brief history of how the magazine was established and structured is given in the first paragraphs. Following are the reviews of the magazine’s issues about the vestimental culture of China, the sensitive question of borrowing elements of Chinese culture into the Japanese oral tradition, the history of state examinations. In the last part of the review I analyze the contents of the special issue on Chinese spirits and demons.

scholarly journals Mythopoetics of the Were-Dragon (The Way of the Dragon by B. M. Yulsky and the Literary Context)

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-135
Author(s):  
Guanqiong Lin
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Far East ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Mountain Forest ◽  
The Real ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
Frontier Mythology ◽  
The Way

As a Russian mountain-forest policeman and writer of the Harbin diaspora, B. M. Yulsky combined in his prose the experience of the police service and ideas about the ethnoculture of the Chinese who inhabited the territory of the Far East. This article contains a hermeneutic and comparative historical analysis of the short story The Way of the Dragon (1939) by B. M. Yulsky. The artistic morphology of the dragon is built on the comparison of its image in Chinese, Amur, Slavic and European cultures. One of the key images in the Russian heroic epic, in the Christian legend of Saint George, in Western and Northern European mythology, the dragon is actualized in modern literature. The analysis involves a philosophical treatise and a Chinese classic novel. It is shown that in the Chinese mythopoetic consciousness the temper and morphology of the dragon is different from its interpretation in European and Russian texts. The content of the short story by B. M. Yulsky speaks about his acquaintance with the understanding of the dragon, which is more characteristic in Chinese culture. The writer integrated the archaic image of the werewolf dragon into the real situation and brought a legend to the history of Honghuzi. The facts set forth in the monograph by D. V. Ershov are the real confirmation of the story described by B. M. Yulsky. The Way of the Dragon is an example of the artistic ethnography and the authorial frontier mythology that have developed in Russian literature in Harbin.

Exotica, Fashion and Immortality: The New Use of Gold in Han Dynasty China (206 bce–ce 220)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Shengyu Wang
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Composite System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Han Dynasty ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Eurasian Steppe ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Use

This article explores the use of gold in the elite tombs of Han dynasty China, the popular use of which originated outside the Chinese cultural milieu, and its integration into the Han portfolio of materials representing people's expectations for the afterlife, such as immortality and well-being. In contrast to jade, which had a long history of use in China, gold was in itself a ‘new’ element of Chinese culture. This article outlines the introduction of gold objects from Europe and Central Asia via the Eurasian Steppe and borderland of China from around the eighth century bce. The unprecedented use of gold in the Han-specific jade suits, and the process by which foreign types of zoomorphic motifs were adopted and connected with local motifs, are explored. In light of the political change from multiple competing states before the first unification in Chinese history in the third century bce, and the development in ideology and concept of an ideal and eternal afterlife, this article explains the reasons and meanings of the new use of gold in Han dynasty China and the composite system of motifs, materials and objects.

Religious Interaction in Early Medieval Kamarupa: An Insight into the Kalikapurana

2021 ◽  
pp. 037698362110520
Author(s):  
Rashmi Rekha Bhuyan
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Brahmaputra Valley ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Other World

Like all other world religions, Brahmanism and Buddhism, the two prominent religious traditions of India, have histories of development and transformations since their inception. Depending on the socio-economic and political scenario, religions are subject to change, often in their basic beliefs and rituals, and at a certain point of time, the interaction between diverse religious traditions also becomes inevitable. Although opponent by nature in their early philosophies, Buddhism and Brahmanism got entwined at a certain phase of history, when many Buddhist deities and rituals were accommodated within the purview of Brahmanism and vice-versa. In the history of Brahmanical tradition, this interaction is traceable in the narratives of Puranic texts composed during the first millennium years of the Christian Era (ce). For the present study, one such Puranic text: the Kalikapurana, composed in Kamarupa (early Assam) during the early-medieval period, has been taken into account to understand the process of interaction between Brahmanism and Buddhism in the historical context of early Assam. Being primarily Brahmanical religious texts, the Puranas contain traces of Buddhism only in ‘covert’ form: in the form of myth. Focussing on some myths narrated in the Kalikapurana, the present study will discuss the existence of Buddhism in the early-Brahmaputra valley prior to the coming of Brahmanism. It will help us to understand the strategies adopted by the immigrant Brahmins to accommodate the prevailing traits under the purview of Brahmanical Hinduism.

Secularism and Multiculturalism in India: Some Reflections

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rochana Bajpai
Keyword(s):  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Hindu Nationalism ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

What role does secularism have in the governance of religious diversity in an age marked by the assertion of religio-cultural identities across the world? India, with its long history of religious pluralism, a state ideology of secularism, and the ascendancy of Hindu nationalism, is a key site for examining the disposition of secularism towards religious identities and diversity. Secularism and multiculturalism are often seen as opposed in political debates involving religious minorities, notably the well-known French headscarf case. Several scholars have suggested that religious traditions offer better resources for toleration than modern secularism (for India, see, for example, Madan 1998: 316; Nandy 1998:336–7). Others, more sympathetic to secularism, have also suggested that it may be deficient in the normative resources required for the accommodation of religious practices, particularly in the case of minorities (Mahajan, this volume; Modood 2010).

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