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8 pages/β‰ˆ2200 words
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10 Sources
Style:
Chicago
Subject:
Religion & Theology
Type:
Essay
Language:
English (U.S.)
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MS Word
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Topic:

Importance of Rituals, Traditional and Cultural Practices, and Confucianism in Sharing Knowledge

Essay Instructions:

The final paper should be 7-10 pages in length, and is due by the end of the day on December 12, 2018. Be sure to support your observations and arguments with appropriate passages from relevant sources. Note that due to the late date of this deadline, it will be difficult to grant extensions without compelling extenuating circumstances. Please plan accordingly and make adequate backups in case of sudden computer meltdowns, etc 

It is expected that papers will demonstrate some research beyond the scope of materials assigned on the syllabus. These should be reputable, scholarly articles, books or translations (e.g. please do not cite Wikipedia or copy and paste from it…) Recommended starting points are the Northeastern library, Google Scholar and JSTOR. If you have questions regarding the reputability of a given source or would like suggestions to help with your research process, feel free to contact the instructor.

  1. Sources we have read throughout the course have expressed doubts about whether language, especially flowery speech and rhetoric, are sufficient to transmit knowledge and ideas. Several methods have been proposed for circumventing this barrier, including the transmission of knowledge through a set of practices like ritual, contemplative practice, the interpretation of history, poetry or the cracks in bones to make them relevant to a new situation, and the radical disruption of fixed ideas through the use of paradox and metaphor. Do you feel any of these methods has the potential to be effective? Begin by defining the problem of language using passages from primary sources, and also demonstrating between one and three solutions the sources propose. Next, make your own arguments for if you agree that there is a problem with language to begin with and why the solutions may or may not be effective.
  2. Imagine that you are a ruler in the shoes of Emperor Wu of Han, just beginning to cement your rule. Representatives of the major texts associated with Confucianism and Daoism (as defined by Sima Tan) appear before your throne to present a case for why they should be adopted as your primary tradition. Which would you choose and why?
  3. Several of the sources we have read in class have talked about the idea of stillness. What benefits was stillness thought to bring, how was it cultivated, and what was it to be applied to? Are there differences between the texts on this subject?
  4. Read the articles by Harold Roth and Sarah Queen. What are their main points of disagreement? What evidence do they use to justify their positions? Do you find one position more compelling than the other? Based on the evidence they present and on the sources we have read in class, make an argument on a position you derived after analyzing their scholarship.
  5. We have discussed the theory that the “school affiliations” of Pre-Qin thought, such as Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism and Legalism, were largely created during the Han and applied anachronistically back onto the Pre-Qin period. Does not thinking in terms of school affiliations change the way you view Pre-Qin texts? For example, is there a difference between the way you read the Laozi and the Zhuangzi if you see them as belonging to a “school” and the way you read them if you see them as more independent of one another? (Similarly, you can ask this question about Confucian or Legalist thinkers). Choose representative passages and discuss how you think they would be understood differently from the perspective of “schools” and “no schools.”
  6. In the last few weeks we have discussed the growing importance of commentaries from the Han onward, whether with the creation of the so-called Confucian canon, or with the commentaries, redactions and possible inventions of the Xuanxue scholars. What do you think the role of commentary is in Chinese philosophy? Has it distorted and obscured the original meaning of the sources upon which it comments? Are changes justified by the way commentary extends the meaning of those original sources to new contexts? Lastly, as someone in the twenty-first century, is it more important to find what is as close to the original meaning as possible, or to engage with the more than two millennia of commentary between us and the original source?
  7. Writing commentary / making a translation: choose between one and three passages and write a line-by-line interpretation of that passage, connecting it to other material we have read and discussed in class. If you wish, you may also make an original translation of those passages. Please consult with the instructor on your intended passage(s) by December 5th.
  8. A research topic of your choosing. Please inform the instructor of your intentions to write on your own topic by December 5. 

Note on citations:

Preferred style of citations for this class is according to the Chicago Manual of Style, notes and bibliography style, cited in footnotes (not embedded citations) and should look like this:

{for less than three lines of quotation:}

According to one story, “once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly.”[1]

{For three or more lines of quotation, use block quotes:}

The opening passage of the Analects presents a sense of the joys of the ideal person:

To learn, and at due times to practice what one has learned, is that not also a pleasure? To have friends come from afar, is that not also a joy? To be unrecognized, yet without being embittered, is that not also to be a noble person?[2]

[For more information on Chicago Style citations, please see: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html]

[1] William Theodore De Bary, Irene Bloom, and Joseph Adler, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1999), 103.

[2] De Bary, Bloom, and Adler, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 1:45.

Essay Sample Content Preview:

CHINESE PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Student’s name
Institutional affiliation
December 13, 2018
The language problem may be defined as a deficit where individuals develop difficulties in understanding a particular language and ways of communication resulting in ineffective delivery of information, and to some extent of poor interpretation of dictated information. Language problems are common obstacles among a different generation of the same culture. They can range from the slow acquisition of language sounding substitution to the extent of getting misunderstood. Words have different meaning between people of different cultures or people of the same culture raised in different times. Research proves that the use of gestures is an important element that should be applied in situations where conveying of messages is facing barriers to promote better understanding and passage the knowledge.[Unesco. Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe. (2018)]
People can effectively exchange knowledge through communication, especially when they rely on testimonies they can harness knowledge and ideas where speakers communicate their knowledge. Testimonies can allow transmission of knowledge and ideas from the speaker to the intended audience. In this case, the speakers are required to focus on delivering the knowledge to their audience who barely know less about what they talk about.
Rituals and other cultural events are customary practices that create a firm foundation of the lives of communities that are shared by and important to the majority of their members. These practices are important because they reaffirm the distinctiveness of those who exercise them as a group, whether they are performed in public or private places they are closely related to crucial occasions. Social and ritual practices are important in marking the passing of the seasons and events in the stages of a human’s life. Rituals are related to a particular society’s worldview and opinions of its past. Rituals performed in small gatherings differ from those practiced in bigger social events and commemorations.
Cultural practices are important channels in which communities should use to feed their generations with knowledge and ideas. Traditional practices play a key role in civilization and character reinforcement of members of a particular community. Rituals assist in striking a balance with nature and improved conservation of natural resources, thus highlighting its importance in the society and the reason by which ritual practices should be passed to generations. Good understanding of weather patterns and different types of agriculture produce are the crucial pillars majority of different cultures in the world. Society’s ways of integrating food resources and basic needs become a culture. Therefore, it is important to teach the next generations ways in which the previous generation, carried various activities and how they conserved and respected them. This highlights that the uniqueness of ritual practices in feeding generations with knowledge is required in the understanding of terms and other basic ideas in a particular society.
History has been used for decades to understand ones’ culture whereby people gain...
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