Syllabus I: Confucian's Progress

I've gone through The Confucian's Progress and made several outlines with notes, trying to conceptualize my class for next fall. Here's an admittedly messy short list of things I think are relatively important. Tomorrow at the library this listing will become a bit filled out. I think the next goal will be to compare with the first chapter of Larson's Literary Authority, which takes the same topic. After that, it will be necessary to review the relevant women's autobiographies. And after that, begin tackling the problem of what modern texts to include -- how do I even want to teach, modernity, anyway?

I have some ideas, but sheesh, this is going to be a lot of work.

Short Reading List Modeled After The Confucian's Progress

Part I: The Self Constrained

Tao, Qian. The Poetry of T`ao Ch`ien; Hightower, James Robert, ; Tr. The Oxford library of East Asian literatures;. Oxford, Clarendon, 1970. "Master of Five Willows:" The first self-Written Biography.

Vignettes from the late Ming : a hsiao-pʻin anthology. Especially look at Li Zhi (1527-1602) aka 空若谷; the issue of truth and falsity. Reasons for using this device (sparing oneself from pain)



Brown, William A. 1930- (William Andreas). Wen T'ien-Hsiang: A Biographical Study of a Sung Patriot. Asian library series ;; no. 25;. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1986. Wen Tianxiang. a martyr who wants to air his cause, "aware of having a place in history." Example of Annalistic Autobiography 自序年譜. Lots of shrines have become symbols of the Nation.

Sima Qian: The Grand Historian. Sources TBA.

Li Qingzhao: the Lady Poetess. Owen, Stephen. An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. 591-7. Also poems., pictures I have amassed.

Buddhist Testimonies : TBA

Part II: The Self Transformed

Wu, Pei-yi. The Confucian's progress : Autobiographical Writings in Traditional China. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. 239-42 Yuan Miao's autobiographical letter.

Kelleher, M. Theresa. Personal Reflections on the Pursuit of Sagehood: The Life and Journal (Jih-Lu) of Wu Yü-Pi (1392-1469), 1986. PhD Thesis, Columbia University 1982. 93 Wu Yubi's diary. a "historian of the self, but only in a limited sense."

Wu, Pei-yi. The Confucian's progress : autobiographical writings in traditional China. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. 243-51 Hu Zhi (1517-1585) "The first bona fide Neo-Confucian to write a
spiritual autobiography"

Part III: The Self Invented

Spence, Jonathan. Return to Dragon Mountain : Memories of a Late Ming Man. New York: Viking, 2007.

Wu, Pei-yi. The Confucian's progress : autobiographical writings in traditional China. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. 253-62. 9:
Wang Shimin (1592-1680), Artist as Model Citizen. "He is included in this
section precisely because he is in every way the diametric opposite of
fictionists and fantasts."

Part IV: The Self Examined

Yang, Hsien-i. The Man Who sold a Ghost : Chinese tales of the 3rd-6th centuries. [Hong Kong]: Commercial Press, 1974. pp. 60-64. Zhang Daoling, Daoist master. Daoist Confessional.

Shen Yue and the rite of uposatha: TBA

The Self on Trial: Liu Zongzhou's Imaginary Tribunal. Sources of Chinese Tradition, p. 923

Shen, Fu. Six Records of a Floating Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983. "Written by Shen Fu (b. 1763), a hapless and obscure figure, the manuscript of the Fu-sheng liu-chi was not discovered and printed until this century. The discovery could not have come at a more propitious time, for the Chinese reading public had then just acquired a taste for the autobiographical form through translations of Western works as well as a new aftermath of the May Fourth movement. Shen Fu's long-lost work rapidly became the most widely read as well as the most frequently translated Chinese autobiography. It has even been made into a film -- a dubious distinction shared by no other traditional and modern Chinese autobiography and a touchstone for the universality of the genre."