Song, "Learning from the other: Giulio Aleni, "Kouduo richao", and late Ming dialogic hybridization," 2006

Gang Song, Ph.D

Abstract (Summary)

Taking Kouduo richao (Daily Record of Oral Instructions, 1630-1640) as one paradigmatic piece of literature, the dissertation explores how the Jesuits and Chinese converts created a hybrid Christian-Confucian identity in late Ming Fujian through the medium of dialogue.

The dissertation analyzes interconnected intellectual, spiritual, moral, and ritualistic themes reflected in Kouduo richao and other late Ming Christian dialogues, tracing authoritative thoughts in medieval Europe and imperial China and revealing various ways they were reinterpreted in a dialogic context. Aleni's instructions on practical learning were highly selective out of medieval Aristotelian-Thomist traditions, and subtly adaptive to classical Confucian thought, while Fujian converts responded with their reinterpretations (or misinterpretations) of classical sources and Jesuit sciences to shape a new Christian-Confucian identity. As for the spiritual and moral learning, Aleni and Fujian converts likewise involved in dynamic negotiations between Catholic doctrines and Confucian teaching by frequently shifting among different voices. Their dialogues revealed a tendency to create mutually acceptable ideas and to actualize them through filial piety to God the Great Father-Mother and parents, good works, and an interiorized contemplative life merging Ignatian spirituality and Confucian sincerity. In addition, many episodic, daily instructions of the Jesuit masters in Fujian were accompanied by visual representations of a hybrid Christian-Confucian identity. Objects, images, and rituals by means of reproduction and reinterpretation found their way to show up in Fujian socio-religious landscape, despite the growing opposition of anti-Christians. With interactive exchanges structured by a self-other relation, Christian and Chinese representations coexisted to shape a harmonious reality, visible and practicable.

Based on the literary and cultural inquiry of later Ming Christian dialogism, this dissertation argues that Kouduo richao should be taken as a representative record of Aleni's Fujian mission with his consistent employment of both the intellectual and the religious. It exemplifies a macroscopic but substantial study of the Sino-Western encounter under the new theory dialogic hybridization, which leads to an integration of previous approaches, and through the underpinning trajectory from dialogue to the dialogic, helps a better understanding of China's past intercultural experience.

Advisor: Cheung, Dominic