Body, Ritual and Identity / / by Jui-sung Yang.

• Superior document: Sinica Leidensia, Volume 132
• VerfasserIn: Yang, Jui-sung, 1963-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands ;, Boston, [Massachusetts] : : Brill,, 2016.; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Sinica Leidensia ; Volume 132.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (xiii, 185 pages).
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Yan Yuan (1635-1704) has long been a controversial figure in the study of Chinese intellectual and cultural history. Although marginalized in his own time largely due to his radical attack on Zhu Xi (1130-1200), Yan was elevated to a great thinker during the early twentieth century because of the drastic changes of the modern Chinese intellectual climate. In Body, Ritual and Identity: A New Interpretation of the Early Qing Confucian Yan Yuan (1635-1704) , Yang Jui-sung has demonstrated that the complexity of Yan’s ideas and his hatred for Zhu Xi in particular need to be interpreted in light of his traumatic life experiences, his frustration over the fall of the Ming dynasty, and anxiety caused by the civil service examination system. Moreover, he should be better understood as a cultural critic of the lifestyle of educated elites of late imperial China. By critically analyzing Yan’s changing intellectual status and his criticism that the elite lifestyle was unhealthy and feminine, this new interpretation of Yan Yuan serves to shed new light on our understanding of the features as well as problems of educated elite culture in late imperial China.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- 1 Introduction: Why Yan Yuan? -- 2 The Formation of a Radical Anti-Zhu Xi Confucian -- 3 Discontent with “Culture”: Yan Yuan’s Reconfiguration of Confucian Learning -- 4 Yan-Li School Reconsidered: Li Gong as “Disciple” -- 5 From Oblivion to Glory: The Revival of Yan Yuan in Modern China -- 6 Conclusion: Body, Ritual and Identity -- Bibliography -- Index.