Matching Items (5)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: religion
- All Subjects: Immigrants in literature
Description
Wu Yun (d. 778) was prominent poet at the Tang court. His biography of the Daoist ritualist Lu Xiujing (406-77) can be read on several levels. It functions as a source of information on Lu's life and works, but a reading focused on this alone is insufficient. Conventions of Chinese biography dictate the text is read not just with an eye towards who Lu "really was," but also how he functions as a character fashioned by an author for certain purposes. With this in mind, the reader can learn not just about Lu, but about the audience of the text and the aims of its author. Lu functioned as a model for later Daoist masters and as an exhortation to proper conduct towards them on the part of rulers and elites. Finally, with reference to the work of Michel Foucault and scholars of collective memory, this work can be read as a window onto the world of discourse in early medieval China.
ContributorsSwanger, Timothy (Author) / Bokenkamp, Stephen R. (Thesis advisor) / Aguilera, Miguel A. (Committee member) / West, Stephen H. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Yuan Mei 袁枚 (1716-97) is often thought of as a rebellious figure within the eighteenth-century intellectual and literary landscape. His perceived rejection of nearly all aspects of Confucian values was so extreme that he was even dubbed a "sinner against the teachings of Confucius." This thesis examines six stories within Yuan Mei's Zi buyu 子不語 (What Confucius Did Not Talk About) and, through close reading, shows how Yuan Mei utilizes each foreign group's physical traits and their ability to verbally and/or ethically communicate with the Chinese protagonist, in order to reflect their adherence to Confucian values and acceptance of Chinese imperial authority to arrange them along a spectrum of humanness that reflects the Chinese-foreign distinction. Furthermore, by examining each story in their historical and literary contexts, it is discovered that nearly every foreign group portrayed in Zi buyu is based on historical groups that actually existed on the periphery of the Qing empire, and that the different degrees of foreignness of each subject reflect each historical foreign group's acquiescence to or rebellion against the imperial authority of the Qing empire. Contrary to commonly held opinions, Yuan Mei's negotiation of foreignness demonstrates his own deep subscription to Confucian ethics and adherence to imperial order.
ContributorsCampos, Miles (Author) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Thesis advisor) / Oh, Young Kyun (Committee member) / West, Stephen H. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Se examinan desde una perspectiva autobiográfica las obras de Yolanda Cruz, Saúl Cuevas, Víctor Fuentes, John Leguizamo, Gustavo Pérez-Firmat, Roberto Quesada, y Esmeralda Santiago bajo los filtros de los espacios creados por la migración y/o el exilio, para lo cual se toma en cuenta el bagaje cultural de objetos que cada uno de estos autores aporta en el panorama cultural euiberolatino en los Estados Unidos. Para su análisis crítico, se consideran en un primer plano el pensamiento en Imaginary Communities: Utopia, the Nation, and the Spatial Histories of Modernity (2002) de Phillip Wegner sobre las comunidades imaginarias creadas desde los espacios utópicos que se convierten en realidad desde un enfoque sociohistórico en un ambiente de Estado moderno. Asimismo, se interpreta la ideología como Misplaced Objects; Migrating Collections and Recollections in Europe and the Americas (2009) de Silvia Spitta sobre los objetos desubicados y la transformación que conlleva con dicho movimiento vía el desplazamiento en los espacios de migración y exilio de los autores en este estudio. Se consideran ciertas similares aportaciones existentes como Hispanic New York: A Sourcebook (2010) de Claudio Iván Remeseira cuyo estudio particular enfoca a unos habitantes euiberolatinos de la gran urbe neoyorquina. Para redondear el pensamiento crítico se ha incluido la obra Lugares decoloniales: Espacios de intervención en las Américas (2008), editada por Ramón Grosfoguel y Roberto Almanza Hernández. Este enfoque funciona como el marco crítico para la perspectiva de nuestro texto que examina los bagajes culturales de las regiones como Zacatecas-Durango y Oaxaca, México; La Habana, Cuba; Santurce, Puerto Rico; Olanchito, Honduras; Bogotá, Colombia y Madrid, España y hasta los de sus nuevos espacios en Phoenix, Los Ángeles, Miami-Chapel Hill, Manhattan, Queens y Santa Bárbara, en los Estados Unidos y más allá en Latinoamérica, Europa y África.
ContributorsVargas, Daniel Minerbi (Author) / Hernández-G., Manuel J (Thesis advisor) / Foster, David W (Committee member) / Rosales, Jesus (Committee member) / Garcia-Fernandez, Carlos J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
During the twelfth century, three new schools of Daoism were founded in North China: Quanzhen (Complete Perfection), Taiyi (Supreme Unity), and Dadao (Great Way). While Quanzhen has received much scholarly attention, the others have been largely ignored. By focusing on just one school--Dadao--as in depth as possible and within the historical context, I hope to elucidate the flourishing state of Daoism in North China during the twelfth through fourteenth centuries beyond just the activity of the Quanzhen school. To that end, I have amassed sixteen inscriptions and records, as well as reconstructed one inscription previously incomplete, and added them to the eleven inscriptions and records published in the Daojia jinshi lüe and the three pieces of Yuan-dynasty poetry and prose contained in the Nan Song chu Hebei xin Daojiao kao. This has doubled the available source material. Most of these have been previously published individually, but have never been studied in conjunction with the other known Dadao texts. The result is the most comprehensive study of the school in over seventy-five years, in which I also present a new understanding of the school’s founder, how the lineages developed, and the school’s ultimate fate. The portrait of the school which emerges from this dissertation challenges the notion that Dadao was nothing more than a minor variation of the Quanzhen school or is otherwise unworthy of scholarly attention.
ContributorsBussio, Jennifer J (Author) / Bokenkamp, Stephen R (Thesis advisor) / Tillman, Hoyt C (Committee member) / West, Stephen H. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This dissertation explores the concept of “Pacing the Void” (buxu 步虛) in Daoist scripture and ritual in relation to the Chinese literary tradition from early medieval China through the Tang dynasty. While the term generally connotes the act of ascending to the heavens, it took on varying layers of meaning throughout history, negotiated against the backdrop of new Daoist revelations, historical conditions, and the literary tradition. In part I, I examine early Daoist scriptures, both those of the Shangqing 上清 (Upper Clarity) and Lingbao 靈寶 (Numinous Treasure) traditions, to trace how the concept took shape in these works. The concept originated in Shangqing scriptures, which associate buxu with music and verse performed by the gods on momentous occasions. In Lingbao scriptures, buxu specifies the gods’ regular ritualized ascent up the Jade Capitoline Mountain (Yujing shan 玉京山). A distinct hymnal form, a series of ten verses, also emerged in Lingbao scriptures. Likely first intended for personal cultivation, these hymns were later adapted for communal ritual, in which priests embodied the scriptural doctrine in their performance, reenacting the heavenly precedent on the mundane stage. Part II explores how later writers adapted the Lingbao buxu hymnal form for various purposes and how they understood the idea of “Pacing the Void.” Yu Xin 庾信 composed a series of buxu poems in the Northern Zhou as a commentary on the religious and political scene of the period. Wu Yun 吳筠, writing in the mid 8th century, adapted the buxu hymn as part of his efforts to make Daoist cultivation and transcendence legible for a literati audience. Other Tang dynasty poets transformed buxu into a poetic trope, filtering their experience of Daoist ritual and music through more standard literary associations. By focusing on these writings in their social and historical context, I demonstrate how the concept of buxu, as scriptural doctrine, ritual form, and literary trope, evolved over this time, became embedded in the literary tradition, and captured the imagination of poets and rulers for centuries after its origin.
ContributorsFeezell, Tyler (Author) / Bokenkamp, Stephen R. (Thesis advisor) / West, Stephen H. (Committee member) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Committee member) / Morrow Williams, Nicholas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022