Session Abstract

The image of the secular, rational Confucian has been so central to the European imagining of China that for centuries it stood as a metonym for China itself. Indeed, Nicolá Trigault omitted a passage from the Italian manuscript on the religious practices of the cult to Confucius in his 1615 Latin translation of Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci’s De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas. In order to pursue their proselytizing strategy wherein they would be accepted as “Western Confucians” (xi ru), the Jesuit China Mission promoted Chinese ancestor worship and propitiation of past “sages and worthies” in non-religious terms. The reified image resulting from this strategy survived both the idealized China of the Enlightenment and the scornful backlash that followed, to be embraced by Chinese intellectuals themselves as the Qing empire (1644-1911) came to a close and the Republic of China (1912-1949) was founded. In early twentieth century modernizing discourse Christianity was held up as the normative “religion” Confucianism found to fall short by its standards. The denial of a religious aspect to Confucianism remains an impediment to scholarship today.

            The proposed panel dramatically destabilizes the image of the atheistic Confucian by examining actual practices rather than prescriptive statements in canonical texts. Concentrating on the sixteenth to eighteenth century period that witnessed the flourishing of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and traumatic transition to Qing rule, the papers draw on a diverse and largely unexamined body of source material in order to document the range of devotional activity in ostensibly secular sites. From Kong clan descendants of the Sage to the domestic devotional activities of office-holders and literati, the papers place public and private worship on a dynamic continuum. Rather than marginalized practices derided as “heterodox,” Buddhism and Daoism are presented as central to the intellectual life, institutional organization, and liturgical practice of official schools and private academies. Overall, we demonstrate that the spectrum of devotional activities by individuals for whom the Confucian tradition was germane to their self-conception was significantly broader than previously appreciated.

            In acccordance with the theme of the Annual Meeting, the proposed panel brings a Sinological and Religious Studies perspective to scholarship rigorously grounded in historical method. The presenters run the gamut from senior and mid-career to junior scholars, and possess a diverse skill set within the China field. Participants’ expertise ranges from Buddhist (Eichman), Confucian (Wilson), and Daoist (Burton-Rose) Studies to Intellectual History (Lu) and Gender Studies (Waltner).

            The papers contribute to a number of the liveliest debates in the historiography of late imperial China, including: the process of “Confucianization”; the polyvalency of imperially-sanctioned deities; problematization of the concept of genealogy; and continuities of generic conventions across doctrinal boundaries. Our findings will thus be of interest to a broad range of China historians. Further, given the prolonged and dynamic interaction between European and indigenous Chinese concepts that created our inherited image of the areligious Confucian scholar, it is our hope that the papers will be of interest to Europeanists, Church historians, and practitioners of World History as well.