Chinese Mode of Historical Thinking and Its Transformation in Pedagogical Discourse

Abstract

For over two thousand years, Chinese pedagogy had been molded by Confucian historical texts. Histories occupied a central place in education and social reform. In the early twentieth century, when China encountered Western modernity, a historiographical revolution was launched to challenge the traditional outlook on the past, especially the attitude toward the source of historical meanings—the Confucian classics. The chapter explores a Confucian/Chinese mode of historical thinking for the purpose of pushing the limits of modern rationalities into the unthinkable of otherness to inform curriculum innovation in China. By looking at the nature of Classics Reading in Confucian pedagogy, the chapter analyzes how histories in the form of subtle texturing and layers of interpretive fragments serve to open an unlimited space for morally oriented meaning making. Histories as heterogamous authentic texts from the past could be constantly reinterpreted to activate social dynamics for the present. The examination of historical contingencies and discontinuities in modern China shows how the Chinese mode of historical thinking was altered, leading to an unintelligibility of the past.KeywordsChinese CharacterQing DynastyChinese LearningMing DynastyPedagogical DiscourseThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.