Confucian discourse as conceptual framework: The Role Played by confucian discourse as form in pre-modern Japanese philosophical and literary thought

Abstract

The presentations on this panel are tied together by a common interest in the way Confucian discourse has been used as a conceptual framework or form through which objects such as literary, religious, and philosophical texts are constituted and understood. The subject matter of the papers ranges from the Jesuit use of Neo-Confucian discourse in Japanese didactic texts of the late 16th and early 17th century, to late 17th and early 18th century Japanese commentaries on the Analects, to 18th century Confucian commentaries on Heian literary texts. It is the presenters' hope that the panel will spark lively debate, not just on the role played by Confucian discourse as conceptual framework in Japan, but on the wider issue of the ways differing philosophical and literary traditions interact in a given linguistic and cultural space.