The Daode Jing (The Scripture of the Way and Its Virtues) and Its Diverse Commentaries

Add to Calendar

When and Where

Friday, December 01, 2023 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Hybrid

Speakers

James Robson, Harvard University

Description

The Daode Jing (The Scripture of the Way and Its Virtues) and Its Diverse Commentaries

 

A lecture by James Robson, James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (Harvard University)

  • Time: Friday, December 1, 2023, 3 PM - 5 PM (EST)
  • Location: 

Abstract:
The Daode jing is traditionally regarded as one of the main sacred books of Daoism, written in the 6th century BCE by the religion’s venerable old founder Laozi (“The Old Master”). Over the past two thousand years, the Daode jing has attracted the attention of a multitude of scholars and exegetes in China and spread throughout the rest of East Asia, where it has had a prodigious influence.

In this talk, I am most interested in the diverse afterlives of the Daode jing that become accessible to us through a consideration of its diverse commentaries. This talk will be less concerned with the life of the purported author or the nebulous meanings of the Daode jing and more the lives that the book itself has lived. Through a discussion of a selection of influential early commentaries on the Daode jing we can demonstrate that in ancient China there was not a single way to read, interpret, or put into practice the brief and mysterious work, and through a consideration of later commentaries we can see how those interpretations further shifted over time. It is the surprising diversity found in commentaries on the Daode jing that this talk aims to explore.

Categories

Audiences