The dysfunction of ritual in early Confucianism
By: Michael David Kaulana Ing
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng; chi
Number of pages: 285
ISBN-13: 9780199924899; 9780199924912
Subjects: Rituals; Confucianism
Description: Michael Ing's 'The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism' is the first monograph in English about the Liji - a text that purports to be the writings of Confucius' immediate disciples and part of the earliest canon of Confucian texts called 'The Five Classics', included in the canon several centuries before the Analects. Ing uses his analysis of the Liji to show how early Confucians coped with situations where their rituals failed to achieve their intended aims. In contrast to most contemporary interpreters of Confucianism, Ing demonstrates that early Confucian texts can be read as arguments for ambiguity in ritual failure.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Ritual in the Liji; title: Typology of dysfunction; title: Coming to terms with dysfunction; title: Preventing; title: Inevitability of failure; title: Whose fault is failure? Ambiguity and impinging agencies; title: Ancients did not fix their graves; title: Productive anxieties and the awfulness of failed ritual; title: Concluding reflections: toward a tragic theory of ritual; title: On the textual composition of the Liji.