From the first successful Jesuit mission in 1583 until the disastrous failure of the British trade embassy in 1816, China’s cultural practices transfixed the attention of Western philosophers, theologians, architects, artists, entrepreneurs, and social critics. The direct influences on European culture were many and profound, ranging from Chinese teahouses in European palace gardens to adaptations of Chinese plays for the popular stage, from calls for the restructuring of the civil service on the model of Chinese meritocracy to the espousal of Confucian precepts in the moral education of children.
More significant than even such readily visible gestures of imitation and appropriation, however, were the interpretive strategies that accompanied them: the processes by which Europeans translated the unfamiliar and often enigmatic artifacts of Chinese culture into familiar forms of meaning, thus engaging them in the emergent discourses of European modernity.
This book traces recurrent patterns in the European imaginative constructions of China through four illuminating spheres of encounter: linguistic, theological, aesthetic, and economic. How might we compare the perplexity of Europeans before the Chinese writing system with their experience of Chinese religious practice, trade policy, or porcelain design? The author shows how the remarkably consistent interpretive paradigms revealed through such comparisons suggest not only how historical circumstances condition and constrain responses to the foreign but also how an active engagement with the cipher of foreignness shapes the way a society comes to understand itself.
3 有用 尘与土 2020-12-27 09:23:09
全书分四章,主题分别是十七和十八世纪对汉语的想象和解读,耶稣会和礼仪之争,艺术品和文学中的Chinoiserie,和茶叶相关的贸易往来。精读导言和第一章,浏览后三章和结语。标题里的ideographia不光指汉字的解读,也是全书的理论框架,虽然这样可以统领全书,但建立联系时显得生硬。作者是个多面手,每个话题都谈得很专业。看到不少有用的材料,也有很多没有展开的问题。比如第一章关注的主要是散文和科学语... 全书分四章,主题分别是十七和十八世纪对汉语的想象和解读,耶稣会和礼仪之争,艺术品和文学中的Chinoiserie,和茶叶相关的贸易往来。精读导言和第一章,浏览后三章和结语。标题里的ideographia不光指汉字的解读,也是全书的理论框架,虽然这样可以统领全书,但建立联系时显得生硬。作者是个多面手,每个话题都谈得很专业。看到不少有用的材料,也有很多没有展开的问题。比如第一章关注的主要是散文和科学语言的改革,那么文学语言呢?对汉字的寓意解读谈得太少了,如果熟悉晚明的中文文献就更好。 (展开)
1 有用 林中空地 2013-06-28 14:24:52
象形文字:前近代欧洲的中国密码
0 有用 Syd 2024-01-15 16:49:23 广东
非常有意思,尤其是涉及书法和艺术的部分
1 有用 Monica 2019-09-30 01:42:46
对于求“真”或传道的执念贯穿中西交流史。而所谓“西方”或“基督教思想”或“形而上学”从不是铁板一块。
0 有用 没静电 2019-08-13 07:39:44
西方矮化中国文化的文化史