Confucius and the World Syllabus (a)

On this date on Round and Square's History 

16 January 2014—China's Lunar Calendar 2014 01-16
16 January 2013—Channeling Liam: Yellow Highlighters
16 January 2012—Just Do It Over: Mahler's Ninth Cellphony
16 January 2011—Goofus and Gallant Resource Center

Click here for the other half of this two-part syllabus post:

HIST 150: Weeks 1-8                  HIST 150: Weeks 9-16

[a] 孔子 RF

Confucius and the World
History 150
Spring 2015
MWF 10:00-11:05 AM (150.03)
MWF 11:15-12:20 (150.04)

Robert André LaFleur                                                             Office Hours:

Morse Ingersoll 111                                                                 Monday           2:30-4:00

363-2005                                                                                   Wednesday     2:30-4:00

lafleur@beloit.edu                                                                    …or by appointment

Required Books           

Ames, Roger and Harry Rosemont. The Analects of Confucius.
Chin, Annping. Confucius: The Analects.
Chin, Annping. The Authentic Confucius.
Gardner, Daniel. Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction.
Gardner, Daniel. The Four Books.
Gardner, Daniel. Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects.
Hall, David and Roger Ames. Thinking Through Confucius.
Lau, D.C. Confucius: The Analects.
Nylan, Michael. The Analects.
Slingerland, Edward. The Analects (with selections from traditional commentaries).

Reserve Books or Handouts
Fingarette, Herbert. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred
Lu Ji, The Art of Writing
Richards, I.A., How to Read a Page

Course Description

Confucius (551-479 BCE) taught a wide range of disciples during a time we have come to know as the "Spring and Autumn" period of China's Zhou dynasty. His teaching was interspersed with travel and concerted attempts to find employment in the serive of one of the budding and ambitious states of a changing society. After his death, his students compiled his teachings into a series of "analects"—brief observations about human behavior, social structure, and ritual conduct that would carry enormous power throughout the course of Chinese history.

[b] Pattern RF

Confucius could never have known that his teachings would be studied and adapted for twenty-five centuries. He also could not have anticipated the ways that those teachings would be transformed into something that has carried his name during that time (Western renderings often put it into the form called "Confucianism"). This course will introduce Confucius's Analects and trace their journey through the widely disparate period that make up Chinese history to the present day. Through it all, we will consider a "living" Confucius and a "living" text that continues to exert a profound influence on the world both within and well beyond China.

Evaluation

Quizzes...................................15% 

Analects Letter........................20% 

Midterm analysis.....................20% 

Late-Term Exam......................20%

Final Paper..............................25%

—Class attendance and participation is expected. 
—More than two missed classes will result in the loss of a letter grade for the course.
—Five or more missed classes will result in an F grade for the course.

See my class attendance and participation policy.

Late assignments will be penalized—see my late assignment policy.

Click here for the other half of this two-part syllabus post:

HIST 150: Weeks 1-8                  HIST 150: Weeks 9-16

Confucius and the World
HIST 150

Week I 

(January 19-23)

Monday 1/19
Lau, Confucius—The Analects: 59-62
     Book I

Wednesday 1/21
Gardner, Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction (first half)
Chronology
 Confucius (551-479 BCE) and His Legacy
 The Individual and Self-Cultivation
 Government in Confucian Teachings
Lau, Confucius—The Analects: 59-80
     Book I
     Book II
     Book III
     Book IV
     Book V
Round and Square 
     Syllabic Cycles: Introduction (a-d)  Read all four posts, not just “a.” 

Friday 1/23
Gardner, Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction (second half)
     Variety Within Early Confucianism
     The Reorientation of the Confucian Tradition After 1000 CE
     Confucianism in Practice
     Epilogue: Confucianism in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Week II

(January 26-30)

Monday 1/26
Round and Square 
Quotidian Quizzes: Introduction (a-h) 
     Read all eight posts, not just “a.” 
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Gardner, The Four Books: 1-52
     Introduction: The Four Books in Chinese Society
     The Great Learning
     The Analects 
Lau, Confucius—The Analects: 81-105
     Book VI
     Book VII
     Book VIII
     Book IX
     Book X

Wednesday 1/28
Gardner, The Four Books: 53-106
The Mencius
Lau, Confucius—The Analects: 106-137
     Book XI
     Book XII
     Book XIII
     Book XIV
     Book XV

Friday 1/30
Gardner, The Four Books: 107-147
     Maintaining Perfect Balance
     Conclusion: Interpreting the Four Books 
Lau, Confucius—The Analects: 138-160
     Book XVI
     Book XVII
     Book XVIII
     Book XIX
     Book XX

Read the Analects Letter Assignment—Due February 20!

See my late assignment policy. 

Week III

(February 2-6)

***No Class Meeting on 2/2***
Check Your E-mail for the plan (but you need to do the work on the syllabus)
Monday 2/2
Round and Square—See Separate RSQ Syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate NYRB syllabus  
Annping Chin, The Authentic Confucius, 1-84
     Prologue
     Introduction
     Leaving Home
     Families and Politics
     Companions

Wednesday 2/4
Annping Chin, The Authentic Confucius, 85-171
     Wanderings
     Return
     Teaching

Friday 2/6
LaFleur, "The Art of Warning" (audio lecture—check e-mail for Dropbox link)
Annping Chin, The Authentic Confucius, 172-222
     The Rites of Life and Death
     Defenders
     Epilogue 

Read the Analects Letter Assignment—Due February 20!

See my late assignment policy. 

Week IV

 (February 9-13)

"Grammar" Week!

Monday 2/9
Round and Square—See Separate RSQ Syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate NYRB syllabus 
David Foster Wallace, Tense Present (Dropbox)

Wednesday 2/11
LaFleur, Rob's Style Sheet (Dropbox)   
Zerubavel The Clockwork Muse (Dropbox)

Friday 2/13
Lu Ji, The Art of Writing (Dropbox)
I.A. Richards, How to Read a Page (Dropbox)  

Read the Analects Letter Assignment—Due February 20!

See my late assignment policy. 

Week V

 (February 16-20)

Monday 2/16
Round and Square—See Separate RSQ Syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate NYRB syllabus 
Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (handout)
     Human Community as Holy Rite
Ames and Rosemont, The Analects of Confucius, 1-65
     Introduction
Chin, Confucius: The Analects, xv-xxvi
     Introduction
Slingerland, Confucius: Analects, vii-xxv
     Preface
     Introduction
Nylan, The Analects, ix-lxiii
     Translator's Introduction
     Editor's Introduction

Wednesday 2/18
Work on Your Letters!

Friday 2/20
Work on Your Letters!

***  ***

Letter Assignment Due by 10:00 p.m. on Friday, February 20th (hard copy in MI 111). 
See my late assignment policy.

Week VI

 (February 23-27)

Monday 2/23
Round and Square—See Separate RSQ Syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate NYRB syllabus 
 Chin, Confucius: The Analects, 1-115
     Books 1-7

Wednesday 2/25
 Chin, Confucius: The Analects, 116-217
     Books 8-13

Friday 2/27

Chin, Confucius: The Analects, 218-327
     Books 14-20

Week VII

 (March 3-6)

Monday 3/2
Round and Square—See Separate RSQ Syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate NYRB syllabus 
Slingerland, Confucius: The Analects, 1-85
     Books 1-8

Wednesday 3/4
Slingerland, Confucius: The Analects, 86-173
     Books 9-14

Friday 3/6
Slingerland, Confucius: The Analects, 175-235   
     Books 15-20

Week VIII

Midterm Break

Click here for the other half of this two-part syllabus post:

HIST 150: Weeks 1-8                  HIST 150: Weeks 9-16 

[c] Philosophen RF

Erlangen 91052 (6)—Konfuzius Institut New Year's Gala

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square Series "Erlangen 91052"
Click here to access the Resource Center (for all other "Erlangen 91052" posts).
One year ago on Round and Square (15 February 2013)—China's Lunar Calendar 2013 02-15
Two years ago on Round and Square (15 February 2012)—Seinfeld Ethnography: Newman's Rage

[a] Learnin' RF

Well, I just arrived on the return train from Nuremberg (Nürnberg). Now, back at my apartment in Erlangen 91052, I can ponder the big event that just took place at the Deutsche Bahn (DB) Museum, in its spacious second floor hall and adjacent lobby. Hundreds of people were there, and it was clear that a little slice of globalization (with a dollop of commodification) was being placed on my ethnographic plate. And, as opportunities for intersubjective reflection go, it schmeckt...pretty gut.

[b] Concatenation RF

It was the annual New Year's Gala at the Konfuzius Institut, and it was my first.

I had afternoon errands to run at the bank, and then the post office, but I arrived at the Erlangen Bahnhoff in plenty of time to purchase my ticket to Nuremberg. I made it up to Platform 3 before the 17:14 departure. From there, it was a smooth, twenty-four minute trip to the heart of big-city south-central Germany—the town with a lock on the area's museums, of which the German Railway Museum (this one) is hardly the biggest attraction.

For one shining night in February, though (and on that calendrical concatenation of Valentine's Day and Lantern Festival), the DB Museum brought China and Germany together in one frenzied, speechified, musical spectacle of drinking (Coca Cola), holding hands, and singing we are the world. The only difference was that the musical quality was several notches higher, with vocals from Turandot and an erhu performance that teased more power from a pair of strings than I have ever heard in my life. And how can you beat a lively string quartet (streichquartet) finishing it all up with Ouvertüre zum Frühlingsfest (春節序曲—Spring Festival Overture)?

[c] Instruments of power

Now that's "cultural contact."

So far, I have left out the biggest part of the program, however. The speeches packed a powerful Germanic punch, and I learned a thing or two about the qualities that make a speech fit the occasion. They were good. The challenge lay in their being seven of them. Count 'em: eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben...and then music (and only after that, food and drinks). Seven speeches, all in German (with the exception of the General Counsel of the PRC in Munich, who had a few lines of Mandarin)...had whole swaths of the audience thinking about other things.

I saw it as an opportunity to see how much my linguistic net could catch at this early transitional stage from my college German (and a little reading in my field of study over the years). The experiment was a success; I learned that I have...a lot to learn. Still, it goes further. Have you ever found yourself in a situation in which you know the linguistic expectations are going to bury you—that you are about to be at the bottom of a dump truck pile of foreign verbiage? Well, I have (and was there again tonight). Seven speeches (by a combination of government officials, academic administrators, and mayors). Seven.

[d] Instrumentation RF

And yet (and yet)...I have learned to get what I can from these "opportunities." 

Moreover, they were quite good, and I say that with sincerity. 

But back to the dump truck of language. I often joke (but I am only partly "joking") that linguistically superior people are, in almost every case, better at tolerating a staggering level of incomprehension than are "normal" people. Over the years, they have learned to be patient and to soak in scores of utterances as completely as possible, getting what they can out of every clear word, social cue, or chance detail that they understand.

It reminds me of the New Yorker cartoon of a woman talking to her dog. This is how I remember it: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Rover, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, good doggy! Here is a Gary Larson version of the theme that makes the same point.

In many ways, this has been the story of my foreign-study life (strings of "blahs" and an occasional "Rover," "Ginger" or "good doggy").

[e] Listening...learning RF

Let me go further, by telling a little story of a day when I was sitting in the busy office of the "Japan Study" program at Waseda University in Tokyo. American students in the program came and went, picking up their mail, stopping to chat, and so forth. The office was a part of a much larger office center, with busy workers doing the administrative legwork of the university's international studies bureaucracy. 

In walked a Japanese office assistant. She began speaking to me in Japanese (this often happens...in Japan). I began to listen (this is what I have learned to do, and I only emphasize that because of what came next). Before a full sentence had been uttered, one of the American students waved her hands in the air and fairly yelled "WE DON'T UNDERSTAND!"

I have thought about that a good deal over the years, and it has become a lesson in reverse for me. Now I try to throw myself into situations where I have to hang on for dear life, as we say back home. This is not hard to do when one's language skills are as poor as my German ones. Still, I have learned a good deal about language as a total communicative act rather than just phonemes and syntax. This happens when you can't rely on only words and grammar to carry you. I have also (and this is the point of today's post) found that I can understand a whole lot more if I just relax and throw open wide the doors of full listening. 

I wonder what would happen if we all started to do just that, even in our native languages?

I might even buy the world a Coke...nfucian classic.

[f] No "blahs" here RF

Next
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D
I'm in love with three virtuosos, and have a newfound respect for this piece. What does that have to do with Germany? A lot. You'll see.