Toward Relationally Engaging Confucian Texts as Contemporary Educational Resources

Abstract

Normative notions that classical Chinese texts support authoritarian practices eclipse the possibility that the texts can become contemporary educational resources. Oriented by a conception of relationality, the research engages a Foucauldian approach to writing history as genealogy to argue that the political use of the so-called Confucian texts as content for imperial Chinese civil service examinations throughout much of the last two millennia situated the texts as objects and subjects of power. More specifically, the conflation of the philosophical texts with the exam process produced an extreme context enhanced by a public’s desire for success. This context shaped the conditions of textual engagement and contributed to reductive normative textual interpretations, which had broader social implications. However, if reading contexts influence textual meaning, then changes in contexts impact interpretations of these texts. This perspective suggests that educators of varied disciplines who directly engage the texts contribute to the ongoing construction of textual meanings, providing provocative frameworks to consider contemporary phenomena.