In Quest of the Genuine - Wai-yee Li

NOTE: This talk frequently switches between Chinese and English so the subtitling in sections with Chinese may be inaccurate.

CEAS Lecture Series
December 2, 2016
Joseph Regenstein Library
Room 122
1100 E 57th St
Chicago, IL 60637

The seventeenth century thinker Gu Yanwu notes that the word
"zhen" (genuine, sincere, authentic), so prevalent in late Ming writings, does not appear in the Five Classics, and he contrasts its uses in
Zhuangzi, where it carries implications of Daoist transcendence and
immortality, with its implication of the correspondence between name and actuality in early historical writings. Prof. Li investigates when and how the word "zhen" acquires specific associations with sincerity and spontaneity. Her lecture focuses on how and why this word is central to late Ming sensibility and its critique after the fall of the Ming.

Sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies and the University of Chicago Library.