Modern East Research Articles

Plato in East Asia?

Shadi Bartsch in her recent publication Plato goes to China (2023) has argued that Plato and the Greek classics have had an out-sized impact on Chinese politics and intelligentsia. This article, while sympathetic to her approach, argues that there is little evidence that Plato and the Greek Classics have exerted any direct influence on Chinese politics. Rather it argues that what influence Plato has had on China is actually indirect via a pre-war national socialist Japanese filter. In pre-World War II Japan Plato was fetishized as the ancient source of western socialist and communist thinking. Radical extremists such as Kita Ikki and Kanokogi Kazunobu created a new ideology that mingled aspects of Platonism with socialism and Japanese nationalism. They hoped thereby to create a modern-day Platonic utopia for the East Asian races (and for the Japanese in particular). This article examines how this modern-day “version” of Platonism with “Asian” characteristics impacted on pre-war Japan and modern East Asia as a whole.

Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia, written by Victor Seow

Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia, written by Victor Seow

Rendition of σώφρων and σωφροσύνη in Ukrainian translations of the New Testament

Summary The article focuses on the rendition of the key words of the Christian ethical vocabulary σώφρων and σωφροσύνη in Ukrainian translations of the New Testament in comparison with other East Slavic translations in synchronic and diachronic dimensions. The σώφρων word group covers a range of “intellectual” and “moral” meanings in Ancient Greek, which continue to evolve in Hellenistic Greek to denote ‘soundness of mind’, ‘prudence’, ‘discretion’, ‘good sense’, on the one hand, and ‘moderation’, ‘self-control’, ‘temperance’, ‘restraint’, ‘decency’, ‘modesty’, on the other. Retaining such polysemy in the New Testament, the σώφρων word group also displays various connotations depending on gender, age and social status. The Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic calques of the σώφρων word group mostly accentuate its “moral” meanings, especially the meanings of ‘chastity’ and ‘purity’, which evolve in Christian ascetic literature after the New Testament, although in some cases they retain their primary “intellectual” meanings. The article also explores the use of semantic equivalents of the σώφρων word group in Old Ukrainian, Old Russian and Old Belarusian based on corpora data and historical written monuments. We came to the conclusion that Ukrainian biblical translations of the 19th to early 21st century, as well as some Russian and Belarusian translations, generally take into consideration the polysemy of the σώφρων word group in the New Testament, though a great extent of variability of equivalents and a lack of consistent reproduction of gender and age connotations are observed. We argue that the use of certain moral equivalents of the σώφρων word group in modern East Slavic translations (in particular, Ukrainian цнотливий, цнотливість, цнота, Russian целомудренный and Belarusian цнатлівий) is inappropriate due to the resulting narrowing of their meanings to ‘innocence’, ‘virginity’ and ‘sexual purity’.

Human Trafficking and Piracy in Early Modern East Asia: Maritime Challenges to the Ming Dynasty Economy, 1370–1565

AbstractThis study asks how human trafficking in Ming China (1368–1644) became enveloped in the emerging global economy of the sixteenth century. Utilizing theoretical insights from the model of “slaving zones,” the essay examines recorded incidents of human trafficking along China’s littoral from 1370 to 1565 and contends that its presence and persistence were intertwined with the Ming court’s economic policies and problems. Here the history of human trafficking in early-to-mid-Ming China is viewed from the perspective of a series of challenges to the country’s economic well-being but also to its power to govern according to its own laws and norms. These challenges include the Ming regime’s efforts: to eradicate piracy and smuggling through their integration into the lawful framework of tribute trade; to support provincial requests for extra revenue to promote military security; to acquire Japanese silver but deny Japan mercantile access to China; to profit from Portugal’s Southeast Asian and Japanese commercial networks. This study argues that the increasing prevalence of human trafficking along China’s coastline was the result of competing forces anxious for power and riches that fused into the thrust of sixteenth-century China’s expanding economy, as well as the adaptability of those in authority to ignore the consequences of allowing safe havens for persons bartering and selling human beings. These factors turned the status of Ming China’s littoral from a “no slaving zone” into an “imperfect no slaving zone.”

Junction zone structure of the Sarmatia, Volga-Uralia, and Fennoscandia microcontinents as part of the East European Platform basement

Research subject. The structure of the pre-Paleozoic deposits and different-age Precambrian basement of the East European platform based on geological and geophysical data.Aim. To trace the evolution of the area under study and to study the geodynamics of processes in order to reconstruct the paleostructure of the Baltica continent.Materials and methods. The current state of the consolidated crust was studied using a geological interpretation of seismic profiling data (transects: “EB-1”, “Tatseys”, “Magnit”) and materials of gravity and geomagnetic surveys. The material composition of the basement rock complexes was studied based on drilling data.Results. The Baltica continent forms the basement of the modern East European Platform. After the Sveconorwegian folding about 1000 Ma, Baltica had become part of the Rodinia supercontinent and merged with the North American platform. A passive continental margin with the Riphean-Vendian sedimentary cover was formed on the eastern Baltica edge. The Petrozavodsk-Khopersky orogen, which arose in the place of the Karelian (Early Proterozoic) Petrozavodsk-Khopersky paleoocean, was reconstructed. The submeridional suture was a result of this paleoocean closure. The orogen structure, as well as that of the paleocontinent Baltica, was disturbed and partially destroyed by subsequent tectonic processes, which continue at the present time with modern rifting.Conclusions. The closure of the Petrozavodsko-Khopersky paleoocean led to the formation of the Baltica continent, which included three microcontinents – Sarmatia, Fennoscandia and Volga- Uralia. Baltica became part of the Rodinia supercontinent during the Sveconorwegian orogeny. Volga-Uralia was located on the border with the PaleoPacific and had a Late Riphean sedimentary cover of the Rodinia supercontinent. This margin underwent destruction during a collision with the Timanides. The scale and extent of the reconstructed Petrozavodsk-Khopersky orogen is comparable to Paleozoic orogenic belts, such as Cadomides, Caledonides, Variscides, or Timanides.

Red Lines in the Ocean: Sea Routes on Early Modern East Asian Maps

Red Lines in the Ocean: Sea Routes on Early Modern East Asian Maps

Literati of the Garrisons

Conventionally characterized as a perfunctory exercise established to bolster the ranks of Manchu officials, the Qing dynasty civil service translation examination, and its accompanying curriculum of literary and classical training, played a major role in the development of literary-intellectual values among members of the Eight Banners. This article demonstrates how it contributed to the emergence of a multiethnic population of Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese bannermen possessing high levels of Manchu literacy who would become consumers and producers of Manchu literature, translations, and textbooks, engendering a literati culture that extended beyond the administrative concerns of the court. While the Manchu language is commonly considered to have become moribund by the late eighteenth century, the translation examination highlights its continued, and in certain contexts growing, significance into the early twentieth century. These findings require a reexamination of Manchu cultural identity beyond imperial ideology and the role of non-Han peoples in literati culture more broadly. They also provide new insights into the classicizing potential of vernacular languages within the linguistic ecologies of early modern East Asia.

Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia

Journal Article Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia Get access Victor Seow, University of Chicago Press, 2022. 376 pp., 25 b&w illus, cloth, $40.00; paper, $27.50. ISBN: 9780226721996. Colin Fanning Colin Fanning PhD Candidate, Bard Graduate Center, New York, NY, United StatesAssistant Curator of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States Email: colin.fanning@bgc.bard.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Design History, epad021, https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epad021 Published: 12 May 2023

A clue to the evolutionary history of modern East Asian flora: Insights from phylogeography and diterpenoid alkaloid distribution pattern of the Spiraea japonica complex

Each subkingdom of East Asian flora (EAF) has a unique evolutionary history, but which has rarely been described based on phylogeographic studies of EAF species. The Spiraea japonica L. complex, which is widespread in East Asia (EA), has received considerable attention because of the presence of diterpenoid alkaloids (DAs). It provides a proxy for understanding the genetic diversity and DA distribution patterns of species under various environmental conditions associated with the geological background in EA. In the present study, the plastome and chloroplast/nuclear DNA of 71 populations belonging to the S. japonica complex and its congeners were sequenced, combined with DA identification, environmental analyses, and ecological niche modelling, to investigate their phylogenetic relationships, genetic and DAs distribution patterns, biogeography, and demographic dynamics. An “ampliative” S. japonica complex was put forward, comprising all species of Sect. Calospira Ser. Japonicae, of which three evolutionary units carrying their respective unique types of DAs were identified and associated with the regionalization of EAF (referring to the Hengduan Mountains, central China, and east China). Moreover, a transition belt in central China with its biogeographic significance was revealed by genetic and DA distribution patterns from the perspective of ecological adaptation. The origin and onset differentiation of the “ampliative” S. japonica complex was estimated in the early Miocene (22.01/19.44 Ma). The formation of Japanese populations (6.75 Ma) was facilitated by the land bridge, which subsequently had a fairly stable demographic history. The populations in east China have undergone a founder effect after the Last Glacial Maximum, which may have been promoted by the expansion potential of polyploidization. Overall, the in-situ origin and diversification of the “ampliative” S. japonica complex since the early Miocene is a vertical section of the formation and development of modern EAF and was shaped by the geological history of each subkingdom.

Introducing the Warring-States Japan Battle Data

This article introduces the “Warring-States Japan Battle Data,” a new dataset covering 2,889 battles occurring within Japan during its Warring-States period, from 1467 to 1600. The dataset contains fifteen variables covering various features of the battles, including the date, location, participants, initiators, and victors, among others. This article introduces the sources of the data, describes the collection procedures and coding rules, presents basic descriptive statistics of key variables of interest, and applies the battle data to an important question in the political violence and international relations literature: whether conflict “contagiously” diffuses across time and space. The data introduced here should be of interest to scholars of international relations, civil conflict, early modern East Asia, and Japanese history, among others.

In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire: Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia ed. by Barak Kushner and Andrew Levidis

Reviewed by: In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire: Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia ed. by Barak Kushner and Andrew Levidis Kelly Anne Hammond (bio) In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire: Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia. Edited by Barak Kushner and Andrew Levidis. Hong Kong University Press, 2020. vi, 246 pages. $65.00, cloth; $40.00, E-book. Edited collections can be tricky. They often lack cohesion and feel like they are strung together by a theme that is either too broad or too narrow, or the quality of the chapters varies widely. Luckily, this is not the case with Barak Kushner and Andrew Levidis's edited volume, In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire: Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia . The book presents cutting edge scholarship on many different facets of the underacknowledged and underrepresented continuities between the Japanese imperial project and the postimperial reconstruction throughout East Asia. Essentially, the book is a smorgasbord of postimperial history: there is something for everyone who is interested in the legacies of Japanese imperialism throughout East Asia. Although I do not have the space to review all the chapters, I hope that readers will be prompted by my review to check out the book and see what suits their own interests. This volume examines how political systems and society were rebuilt in the postwar period while simultaneously considering how the collapse of the Japanese empire impacted East Asia (p. 2). The postwar experiences of those living scattered throughout the remains of the defunct empire were varied, as were the processes of "deimperialization" (pp. 3–4). At its core, the edited volume examines the ways that the violence inflicted by imperial Japan informed both the tangible (political and military, especially) legacies as well as the postwar memories of people living throughout East Asia (p. 11). The book coalesces around two central themes. All the chapters address how "newly independent entities, or states reclaiming independence" successfully or unsuccessfully came to terms with Japan's imperial programs in their territories. The collection also investigates how postimperial Japan "worked to reframe" these new political, military, and civilian relationships within the new cold war geopolitics in East Asia (p. 15). For the authors, the "indelible mark" of the Japanese empire is all over East Asia, although it is not fully recognized, nor is it fully reconciled (p. 23). The chapters are divided into three thematic sections: "Collaboration and Dilemmas of Deimperialization" (four chapters); "Negotiating Past and Present in the Military and Political Realms" (three chapters); and "Returning to the Continent, Japan's Relations with New China" (two chapters). [End Page 247] When I started my PhD in 2008, Tim Brook had only recently published Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China (Harvard University Press, 2007). Although there is a cottage industry in French studies about Vichy and French collaboration with the Nazis, Brook's work was really the first monograph in English to deal with collaboration with the Japanese empire. Such studies have become more frequent and nuanced (see, for example: Jeremy Yellen, The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Where Total Empire Met Total War [Cornell University Press, 2020]; and A. Carly Buxton, Unthinking Collaboration: American Nisei in Transwar Japan [University of Hawai'i Press, 2022]). Yet, there is still a lot of work to do on the postwar legacies of these collaborators. Many of the chapters in this book (including Levidis's chapter on Kishi Nobusuke and the wartime antecedents of the Liberal Democratic Party [LDP]) are a step in this direction. Beyond the volume, Ernest Leung's recent article in Palladium (August 2021), "The School That Built Asia," echoes many of the points the authors in this section make about the legacies of wartime collaborators in postwar East Asian politics. In section 1, the authors are attempting to "[b]ring attention to spaces where imperial control ceased but was not really replaced" (p. 18). There were often conflicts about how to handle collaborators in postwar East Asia. The Tokyo War Crimes Trials were so different from Nuremburg (see Tim Brook's article "The Tokyo...

Traditionalism in the Oriental Dimension

The article analyzes the concept of “traditionalism”, identified by St. Petersburg scientists as a subject of oriental studies. The need to clarify the status of the discipline arose in connection with its reorientation in the early 2000s to the study of the modern East. If earlier sources for orientalists were written monuments on history, philosophy, law, etc., exported by pioneers and stored in the funds of Europe (London, Paris, Berlin, etc.), as well as St. Petersburg, now the object of research is the living cultures of the East. Ethnography and sociocultural anthropology (ethnology) are also involved in their study. These are related disciplines, however, if the former is more related to, description of the peoples exploring the specific manifestations of ethno-cultural phenomena: customs, rituals, beliefs, symbols, etc., then anthropology with comparative ethnology, the formulation of theoretical and methodological approaches for their study. “Tradition”, from the point of view of the author, since Antiquity has been closely correlated with politics and the aspirations of the elites. In the era of the Enlightenment, this concept acquired an ambivalent content: progressives treated it negatively, considering it an obstacle to the historical development of society, their opponents, on the contrary, believed that it was tradition that ensures the uniqueness of society in the process of its evolution. A similar attitude to tradition is retained in scientific discourse today, it is devoid of scientific content, but is an axiological category. The attitude to tradition is almost the main “bone of contention” in the modern confrontation between East and West. The author proposes an understanding of traditionalism that excludes the absolutization of both universalism (progressivism) and uniqueness in the understanding of tradition, which, from his point of view, corresponds to the principle of scientific character. Keywords: oriental studies, sociocultural anthropology, ethnography, tradition, traditionalism, methodology, the East.

Review of Victor Seow, Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia

Review of Victor Seow, Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia

The Spread of Hygiene Concepts and the Making of Public Health Discourse in Modern East Asia.

If public health can be defined as "all activities to ensure universal medical use of the people and protect and promote health," it can be said that public health emerged in the process of developing the concept of hygiene in East Asia. While traditional hygiene emphasized individual curing and longevity, modern hygiene was the state in charge of individual body and discipline. East Asian countries had to practice modern tasks in the field of hygiene and medical care in line with the construction of modern countries, and it was considered legitimate for modern countries to intervene in individual bodies. As the demand for modern national construction became stronger, interest in public health rather than personal hygiene increased. In East Asia, a new interpretation of the concept of hygiene began in Japan. Sensai Nagayo(1838-1902) newly defined the concept of 'sanitation' to justify the physical intervention of the modern state in Meiji period. The concept of 'public health' began to be used in earnest in 1890, when Ogai Mori(1862-1922) translated Western-style health protection measures for the public as public health. Since then, public health has evolved into a universal social discourse in Japan. Japan's public health expanded to colonial Joseon, Taiwan, and China. Japan's victory in the Sino-Japanese War led East Asian countries to believe that hygiene was the root of the Japanese nation's power. In the early 20th century, the government of the Republic of China began to imitate the case of Japan while promoting modern education reform and institutional reform. Japanese-style 'public health' was transplanted into various hygiene laws and sanitary equipment. In Korea, modern hygiene was introduced and spread from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, and the concept of 'public health' in Japan was mainly spreading. Public health in Japan was vaguely defined as an activity to protect and promote the health of the people, but in practice, it was focused on improving quarantine and environmental infrastructure. In response, the concept of American-style public health, which values prevention and treatment at the same time, has already begun to emerge under the Japanese colonial rule. In East Asia in the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese-style public health and American-style public health discourse competed, and measures to solve medical inequality were discussed in earnest. Interestingly, in common in East Asian countries, Actual Medical Expenses Campaigns to improve medical access at low cost and social medicine to universally provide prevention and treatment to the people have drawn attention. This was also a phenomenon caused by intensifying medical inequality as rapid urbanization and industrialization progressed in East Asian countries in the first half of the 20th century. Although it was impossible to resolve social contradictions or move toward fundamental reform of the national medical system due to the nature of the private movement, the actual medical movement further imprinted the need for public health care in the country and society. Social medicine studied the effects and relationships of the social environment on diseases and health, and studied ways to promote public health by using preventive medicine and therapeutic medicine. If social medicine was supported by state power, it was possible to go forward with practice such as State Medicine like China, otherwise it would only be a civilian movement such as the People's Health Movement, as in colonial Korea. Liberation and the Korean War were a dramatic turning point in American-style health that led to Japanese-style hygiene. Immediately after Liberation, there was a discussion between the left and right camps over medical nationalization to enhance the publicity of medical care. The medical community was sympathetic to the nationalization of medical care, but due to the lack of medical personnel and financial resources, specific alternatives could not be proposed. As American-style health studies gradually expanded their influence after the Korean War, American-style public health, which emphasized prevention and treatment activities, became established, and efforts were made to establish a health center system.

근대 유럽에서 풍경화의 발흥과 진화

This article aims to introduce how European landscape painting emerged in ancient times, gradually revived during the early modern period, and finally developed into an independent subject or genre, which later affects modern East Asian landscape paintings. Landscape paintings in Europe originate from the Minoan civilization of the Aegean sea around B.C. 1450. It also appears in a form of realistic style ‘painting within a painting’ in Roman wall paintings from Campania since B.C. 80. Although this tradition was neglected by the Christianity-oriented medieval art from the 4th to 14th century, it reappeared during the mid-14th century. As the Renaissance Humanism of the 15th and 16th century raised the awareness of the independent self, nature was objectified as a coexisting companion and began to be represented in a vision-based way.BR From the early 15th century, landscape painting was revived as the background of paintings of Flanders, Florence, and Venice. Later in 1473, those background materials began to appear on the canvas solely, signaling the rebirth of a ‘sheer landscape painting.’ Soon after, it developed into both watercolor landscape painting and oil painting landscape painting, and became an independent painting subject accompanied by the emergence of a subject specialist in the 16th century. In the Netherlands during the 17th century, with the support of the bourgeoisie, realistic and naturalistic landscape paintings thrived and landscape became a major genre in painting, eventually leading to the establishment of the tradition of modern landscape painting. Meanwhile, classical landscape painting flourished in Rome and became the canon of modern academic art. From the 18th century to the early 19th century, landscape painting was associated with Naturalism and Romanticism in England, while being the major theme of the Barbizon school in France. Eventually, landscape expanded as a part of the visual culture. On the other hand, German Romantic painters deviated from the customs of landscape paintings to elevate the spirituality of landscape, which combines the perception and mind as religious paintings does through the spiritual eye. After the mid-19th century, landscape, along with nude, became one of the most favored subjects in modern painting and photography, followed by the emergence of Impressionism which led landscape painting to its peak period.

REPRESENTING SPATIAL CONCEPTS: MODERN EAST ASIAN HISTORY IN A DIGITAL PUBLICATION FORMAT

ABSTRACTHow do we adequately capture multivocal history? What are good ways to represent multiple narratives and arguments in an open‐ended fashion? The online publication Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep‐Mapping Modern East Asian History, edited by David R. Ambaras and Kate McDonald, addresses these questions for modern East Asian spatial history. Mainly a tool for teaching and research, the website works by interlinking historiographical information and primary sources. Complementarily, Bodies and Structures 2.0 displays all its contents via a set of visualizations. In this review essay, I argue that this multimodal format is innovative on two ends. First, the site convincingly implements what earlier research on hypertext and visualization has long sought—namely, to exceed traditional text and its limitations to represent intricate matters neatly. This is because of these media formats’ semiotic efficiency in analytically representing complex wholes and their parts. Second, Bodies and Structures 2.0 successfully translates its multivocal concept of spatial history into an interactive multimodal user experience. All in all, it demonstrates that representing concepts is not just about the applied language of narrative and argumentation; it is also about the publication's form. Bodies and Structures 2.0, therefore, is an exciting work from the perspective of theory of history.

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia

Assembly dynamics of East Asian subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests: New insights from the dominant Fagaceae trees.

The dominant species of a biome can be regarded as its genuine indicator. Evergreen broadleaved forests (EBLFs) in subtropical East Asia harbor high levels of species biodiversity and endemism and are vital to regional carbon storage and cycling. However, the historical assembly of this unique biome is still controversial. Fagaceae is the most essential family in East Asian subtropical EBLFs and its dominant species are vital for the existence of this biome. Here, we used the dominant Fagaceae species to shed light on the dynamic process of East Asian subtropical EBLFs over time. Our results indicate high precipitation in summer and low temperature in winter are the most influential climatic factors for the distribution of East Asian subtropical EBLFs. Modern East Asian subtropical EBLFs did not begin to appear until 23 Ma, subsequently experienced a long-lasting development in the Miocene and markedly deteriorated at about 4 Ma, driven jointly by orogenesis and paleoclimate. We also document that there is a lag time between when one clade invaded the region and when its members become dominant species within the region. This study may improve our ability to predict and mitigate the threats to biodiversity of East Asian subtropical EBLFs and points to a new path for future studies involving multidisciplinary methods to explore the assembly of regional biomes.

“Cold and wet” and “warm and dry” climate transitions at the East Asian summer monsoon boundary during the last deglaciation

Studies on millennial‒centennial abrupt climate events during the last deglaciation have significant relevance to modern-day abrupt and extreme climate changes that are occurring more frequently in the context of global warming. The northwestern margin of the modern East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) region is particularly sensitive to such climatic changes. In this study, we employed the continuous sedimentary core sequence of Dali Lake, located on the north-western edge of the EASM region. Carbonate clumped isotope (Δ47) thermometry was applied to both fine-grained endogenic carbonates and ostracod (Limnocythere inopinata [Baird]) shells in the lake core sediments to quantitatively reconstruct lake water temperature and oxygen isotope (δ18OW [VSMOW]) changes during the period from approximately 15.6–10.5 cal kyr BP (calibrated years before the present; abbreviated to “kyr”). Fine-grained endogenic carbonate Δ47 temperatures suggest that the lake surface water temperature changes may have been mainly controlled by the northern high latitudes, reflected in the corresponding millennial‒centennial abrupt climate events (such as a 5–6 °C decrease of summer surface water temperature during approximately 12.9–11.8 kyr, indicative of Younger Dryas [YD] cooling). Ostracod shell Δ47 temperatures complement the endogenic carbonates but appear to be affected by changes in calcification season, likely linked to climatic changes. These data suggest a climatic shift at approximately 15.2 kyr, before the onset of the Bølling‒Allerød (BA) interstadial, which is interpreted as general warming.δ18OW from the endogenic carbonates is interpreted as changes in precipitation and conforms well with 18O isotope changes in Greenland ice cores, suggesting that the precipitation changes may have been influenced by the northern high latitudes. Regional rainfall increased during the Heinrich event 1 (H1) and YD stadials, whereas it appears to have decreased in the BA and during the early Holocene (EH). This study indicates that the primary climate pattern at the northwestern boundary of the EASM region during the last deglaciation was characterized by alterations of “cold and wet” and “warm and dry” climate, rather than the more typical “cold and dry” versus “warm and wet” pattern.

Retrieving the Affective Aspect of Human Being: a Hermeneutical Phenomenological Analysis of 存 Cun/Son’s Historical Origin, its Controversial Role in the East Asian Translation of Being/Existence, and Potential Ontological Implications

It is conventionally accepted that while Western philosophy has “being” as a central topic, Eastern thoughts focused only on “nothing”. I will challenge this perception by retrieving the original meaning of the Chinese existential word 存 cun, which can provide a hitherto neglected affective aspect of being, which in the West is also mentioned by only a handful of philosophers, including Heidegger’s famous discussion of Sorge. I will utilize Heidegger’s hermeneutical phenomenology on cun by looking into the present state of cun’s usage, comparing to its original meaning, and proposing a new way forward. Cun and its compound form cunzai is used to translate “being” in modern East Asian languages. However, recently Chinese philosophers began to question the appropriateness of using cunzai for this role. I will go back to the original meaning of cun as care with both lexicographical and orthographical evidence, comparing its antonym pairing to that of the other East Asian existential words such as 是 shi and 有 you, and trace its changes in meaning. In the last section I will propose possible changes to our dealing with our own existence when we retrieve the original affective aspect of cun, with its coherence of care and existence, through the philosophical use of cun in Mencius.