Event Details

Visiting Scholar Dr. Xiaodan Qiu discusses her research on literature and Confucianism in this LUCC lunch seminar (lunch provided with registration)

This talk aims to answer how modern Chinese literature came into being. Doing so will illustrate the key role Chinese literature has played in the modern transformation of Chinese thought. The article depicts a paradigm shift in which a new literary paradigm replaced the Confucian paradigm during the transformation of Chinese thought from tradition to modernity. In traditional society, Confucianism had the highest discourse power on almost every aspect of the society including the universe’s formation, the politics and the people's life. Literature was reduced to its appendage, mainly carrying the teachings of Confucianism in terms of expression of thought. After the wane of Confucianism in modern times, literature showed an independent character in expressing thought. The May Fourth Movement provided a new literary paradigm that attempted to substitute the Confucian paradigm. The literary paradigm took "science" as the source of truth, legitimacy and authority of thought, replacing the status of heaven (Tian, 天) in the Confucian paradigm, and used "literature" as the provider of thoughts on people’s life and politics, trying to take over the intellectual role played by Confucianism in traditional society. Although this takeover was not truly completed, it still gave literature a clear intellectual role attribute, completed its own transformation from tradition to modernity, and more importantly, enabled literature to play a key role in the history of the modern transformation of Chinese thought.