Toward Ecological Curriculum: Daoist-Informed Hermeneutic Inquiry Into King Lear

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Transcultural Conversation and Epistemology in-the-Making

Abstract

This proposal is a hermeneutic study on Daoist-informed interpretive inquiries to subjects matters dramatized in King Lear. These subject matters include (1) the dramatic characterization of the Fool’s and other characters’ inquiries on the humans’ being, (2) incessant references to nature, Heaven, earth, stars, and Fortune, and (3) the moral order that has a ruthless nature yet arouses our reverence. Dao De Jing and Zhuang Zi, two Chinese Daoist works, present wisdom and ideals on the true knowledge, the true person, the symbiotic relationships of humans with nature, paradox politics, and the morally ordered cosmos, which are interpreted in parallel with the subject matters in King Lear. This paper concludes with ethical engagements in an ecological curriculum.

Author

• Qian Ye, University of Alberta