SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Instruction Dialogues In The Zhuangzi: An “Anthropological” Reading

Abstract

There is a strong tendency in academia to read early Chinese masters as consistent philosophers. This is to some extent caused by the specific setting or form in which these masters have been studied and taught since more than a century. Elisabeth Hsu has shown in her work on Chinese medicine how much the forms of transmission influence their content. I follow her insight in my reading of Zhuangzi. While philosophical readings prefer the essays and monologues over the more fragmented dialogues, and focus on the (charitably reconstructed) content rather than the form, I will turn to the instruction dialogues (especially, one fragment portraying Liezi, a shaman and Master Calabash in chapter 7), and more specifically on their formal traits rather than the ideas conveyed in them. The characteristics of the master in the Zhuangzi and the stages of the instructions scenes seem to promote a non-teaching, in which the learner learns while the teacher does not teach. The non-availability of the teacher and his unwillingness to teach are, paradoxically, at the core of the teaching, although not presented as a valuable alternative. But it alerts us to the fact that we influence our children and students in ways that are not all intended or planned, sometimes even most fruitfully when failing to be model teachers.

Text reference: Zhuangzi 7.5. Cf. Victor Mair: Wandering on the Way. Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu, New York/Toronto/London/Sydney: Bantam Books, 1994: 68-70 and AC Graham: Chuang-tzu: The Inner Chapters. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1986: 96-98.

Admission

Lecture is free and no registration is necessary.

Jointly organised at SOAS by the Early China Seminar at the Department of the Languages and Cultures of China and Inner Asia, the Centre of Chinese Studies and the London Confucius Institute.