PHD sutdents - Antony Ou
Details
email : ouantony@gmail.com
Thesis Title: What is Living and What is Dead in Confucianism Today: Overinterpretation and Optimism of Confucian Classics
Start Year: 2006
Supervisors
Research Topic
Confucianism was once a predominant scholarly and ethical tradition in Imperial China. It was a significant force in Chinese society for more than 2000 years. However, starting from the late 19th century, the philosophical and ideological import of both Liberalism and Marxism created deep-rooted and heated debates amongst Chinese scholars. The key question underpinning many of these debates was far how Confucianism should or could be modernized. Consequently, re-interpreting Confucianism became major preoccupation amongst a number of the 20th century Chinese scholars.
In my reading however it is more accurately viewed as a series of anachronistic, if erudite, intellectual games played among a wide range of Modern Confucian scholars and historians. In essence, it was a systematic "overinterpretation" of Confucian texts as expressions of a hybrid Utopia. "Confucian Optimism," is thus a widespread phenomenon which has developed significantly in the latter half of the 20th century. Despite setbacks it has remained a vibrant and active practice to the present day, and has remained an influential intellectual force in Chinese thinking. In fact it has, in recent years, sustained a recovery in a number of both occidental and oriental political thinkers. It is now envisaged as a powerful force enabling a continuous re-invention of Confucian doctrine as a liberal, democratic, benevolent and harmonious potentially global doctrine. In my own reading however it remains largely mythical.
The central arguments of the thesis will therefore be to track the rise of Confucianism as a political and moral force in Chinese society; to analyze its complex interactions, over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with powerful Western doctrines such as Liberalism and Marxism; and then to focus critically on the recent Confucian revival in both Western and Asian political theory. The central claim however will be to maintain that this rise of Confucian Optimism in misplaced and premised on a series of misinterpretations and misappropriations of Confucian texts. The conclusion to the thesis is to ascertain what cannot be salvaged from the doctrine in the 21st Century.
Teaching
- POL 106 Nature and Desire: Introduction to Western Political thought
- POL 110 An Introduction to the History of Western Political Thought
- POL 221 Contemporary Political Theory
Published Work
"Just War Theory: A Confucian Approach" (2003 in Chinese)
http://lbms03.cityu.edu.hk/award/sa2003-001.pdf
Selected Conference Papers
- Maoist Overinterpretation of Confucianism during Cultural Revolution: A Skinnerian Analysis (British Association of Chinese Studies Annual Conference 2008)
- Modern Confucianism on Just War Theory: a Skinnerian Analysis (European Association of Chinese Studies Biennial Conference 2008, International Forum for Contemporary Chinese Studies 2008, University of Nottingham)
- Modern Confucianism on Human Rights: Truth or Fiction? (British Association of Chinese Studies Annual Conference 2007, Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations Symposium 2007)
- Business and Chinese Classics— A Collective Mythology of Capitalist China (Harvard University Beijing Academic Conference 2007)
Professional Affiliations
Chinese Postgraduate Network (CPN)