Politics, Examinations, and Becoming Culturally Visible: A Genealogy of Confucian Texts

• In Event: 32.083 - Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: 32.083-19 - Confucianism in Practice

Abstract

Contemporary educators often view classical Confucian texts as emerging from an antiquated tradition that has limited relevance toward understanding modern educational systems. The cultural meaning of the texts, stereotypically framed as reflecting authoritarian, rigid, and hierarchical views, overshadows the use of the texts as resources. Inspired by a Foucauldian approach to writing history as genealogy, I argue that the increasing cultural visibility of the texts as content for Chinese civil service examinations throughout much of the last two millennia situated the texts as subjects and objects of political power. Understanding how the cultural meanings of the texts have developed encourages educators to view the texts as resources rather than as having fixed interpretations.

Author

• Mary Chang, University of Hawaii - Manoa