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Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

 
Venue: 
Rooms 8 & 9, Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Event date: 
Wednesday, 1 May, 2019 - 17:00 to 18:30

China Research Seminar Series talk given by Prof. Scott Cook, Tan Chin Tuan Professor of Chinese Studies, Yale-NUS College, Singapore

Among recently unearthed Warring States bamboo manuscripts—in particular the grave-looted manuscripts of Chu purchased by the Shanghai Museum 上博楚簡—there are a number of texts in which we find Kong Zi, Confucius, portrayed in dialogue with important ministers and disciples, each offering, in contrast to what we find in the Lunyu 論語, relatively sustained discourse on some aspect of ethical governance. While not necessarily revealing anything about the historical Kong Zi himself, these texts nonetheless give us interesting glimpses into what was likely being debated by his followers in the 4th Century BC. This talk will focus on three of those manuscript texts—“Kong Zi Had Audience with Ji Huanzi” 孔子見季桓子, “Ji Kangzi Asked Kong Zi” 季康子問於孔子, and “Zigao” 子羔—presenting a new reading of each text and a discussion of what each may have to offer in terms of better understanding the evolving debates in which the followers of Confucius were involved over the course of the Warring States period.

Scott Cook is the author of The Bamboo Texts of Guodian: A Study and Complete Translation, Vols. I and II (Cornell East Asia Series 2012); Guodian Chujian Xian-Qin Rushu Hongweiguan《郭店楚簡先秦儒書宏微觀》(The Pre-Imperial Confucian Texts of Guodian: Broad and Focused Perspectives) (Taiwan Xuesheng shuju 2006); and editor of Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi (State University of New York Press 2003).