Parallelisms in Images — Parallelisms in Texts: A Geometrical Approach to Early Chinese Texts

Abstract:

Having tried to come up with explanations of literary figures of parallelisms in early Chinese texts over the last decades, I have often wondered what exactly our underlying assumptions of such explanations are. What do we think the texts are doing when they use parallelisms and why are we thinking so? What cultural theories inform our own explanations of such figures in ritual, divinatory, poetic, religious or philosophical texts? To seek some clarification on how we generate our theories about the meaning and function of such figures in early texts, the paper, in a first part, examines how parallelisms were explained by earlier scholars who discussed them on the basis of a number of rather diverging assumptions and theories about the cultures of antiquity. Since the term “parallelism” originates in geometry, the paper, in a second part, adopts spatial perspectives in an analysis of textual parallelisms. Taking a further step from my earlier studies into literary forms of argument, and following Chinese diagrammatic traditions, the paper uses visual methodologies to analyse textual compositions as spatial constructs. For this purpose, it analyses the geometry, functions and effects of parallelisms and repetitions in early Chinese pictorial stone reliefs and applies them to text analysis to develop a set of new conceptual questions that might enrich our interpretation of early Chinese texts.

Bio:

Joachim Gentz studied Sinology, Religious Studies and Philosophy in Berlin, Nanjing and Heidelberg. He acted as Assistant Professor for Classical Chinese at the University of Heidelberg (1999–2002), Juniorprofessor in Religious Studies at the University of Göttingen (2002–2006), and Visiting Professor in Tokyo (2000) and Bayreuth (2008). In 2006 he moved to Edinburgh and worked at the Cultural Studies Programme, taught in Religious Studies and the Asian Studies Department in Edinburgh where he served for many years as Research Officer and Head of Department and now holds the position of Chair of Chinese Philosophy and Religion. Joachim's main research focus is on Chinese history of thought. His work crosses the disciplinary boundaries of Sinology, Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Cultural Studies. He has published on early Confucian commentarial traditions, Chinese ritual and divination, Chinese interreligious discourses, early Chinese forms of argumentation, Chinese visual traditions, modern Chinese religious policy and Cultural Studies theory in both German and English. In collaboration with Sarah Queen, he has just finished an NEH-funded ca 1000pp. long translation of the Gongyang and Guliang commentaries.