Research proposal submitted to the Institute for International Research, Hopkins-Nanjing Center, for the Academic Year 2004-2005
Topic: The Face of Confucius as the Face of the Nation: Cultural and Political Meanings of Modern Representations of the Sage
Project Overview: I would like to apply for an in-residence fellowship at the institute for one semester (either fall or spring) of the 2004-2005 academic year. My proposed project is to explore the cultural and political significance of representations of Confucius in modern times and examine how they have been used in the greater China region (and, ultimately, in overseas Chinese communities). My subject matter is visual representations-paintings, temple sculptures, spirit tablets, civic statutes, public memorials, political propaganda, photographs, stamps, currency, film, advertisements, drama – and the documents that reveal their intended meanings. Such materials are as yet unexplored by scholars. I plan to analyze how different depictions of Confucius (created for both domestic and international audiences) have been employed to promote various visions of an idealized Chinese society. The four moths in China would be spent collecting secondary and primary source materials and sharing my interdisciplinary approach with Chinese scholars.
Origins of the project. My interest in modern depictions of Confucius is an outgrowth of a book project (now nearing completion) on the cultural significance of premodern representations of Confucius. That work, tentatively titled The Afterlife of Confucius: Body, Spirit, and Image in the Iconography of the Sage, explores the varied meanings associated with the body and spirit of Confucius and with the visual duplicates of that body (paintings, statues, and so on) that were used to religious and political contexts. Surveying materials from pre-Han through Qing times, in that text I consider how Chinese literati conceptualized the body and spirit of Confucius, and in explore how they responded to representations that purported to resemble him. Some of that work, on the Ming period, in have published in the article “Destroying Confucius: Iconoclasm in the Confucian Temple” (in Thomas A. Wilson, ed., On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius; Harvard,2002; pp.95-133)
I originally intended to include in the Afterlife of Confucius book a chapter on post-Qing images of Confucius; however, I found that the subject was far more complex than I had once realized. Many more kinds of sources were available for the modern period than for the premodern eras in which I had usually worked, and I eventually decided that modern images of Confucius merited a book of their own. Documenting their changing fate would provide a novel and interdisciplinary vantage point for studying shifts in cultural and social values in modern times.
Questions to be addressed. I have identified several interrelated questions.
1. How are visual representations of Confucius identified with notions of Chinese culture or “nationhood” or with a transnational notion of what it means to be “Chinese”? Has the image of Confucius been used politically or culturally to create a sense of common cultural heritage within China’s multiethnic and multicultural communities at home and abroad? It may seem self-evident to a visitor to the statue of Confucius on Confucius Plaza in New York’s Chinatown (or almost any Chinatown in the world) that “the Sage” is the quintessential paragon of Chinese culture. But one must ask, why Confucius? Why not some other figure from Chinese lore such as Laozi, the Buddha, Guanyin, the Duke of Zhou, Mazu, or the Yellow Emperor?
Are such publicly displayed images of Confucius intended to be emblematic of a perceived common heritage? Is the production, display, dissemination, or destruction of such images intended to renew, transform, restore, unify, or revivify society? Consider the example of Japanese Manzhouguo regime that issued currecy embossed with the face of Confucius and of his temple in Qufu. What claims of authority and legitimacy did this assert, and what claims of sovereignty over the hearland of Shandong province did it imply?
2. How has the image of Confucius been used to enhance China’s status internationally as a nation or culture among equals? In present-day Zhengzhou, for example, Middle School #47 has built a public memorial consisting of large bronze busts of important world figures: Confucius, at the center, is flanked by busts of Newton, Galileo, Beethoven, Einstein, and others. And currently, the Hong Kong philanthropist Tang Enjis commissions bronze sculptures of Confucius and other literati and installs them in shrines and schools in China and around the world. In Russia, he has installed a large image of Confucius directly facing and older, rival statue of Marx. The placement and display of these images says that China, then, produces geniuses that are the match of any who hail from Western countries.
3. what motives individuals, private associations, or government organizations to create, duplicate, disseminate, or profane images of Confucius? In 1909 a Confucian association in Hong Kong searched for a “real” (Zhen真) image of Confucius in Qufu that it could reproduce (in the manner of a colorized photograph) and distribute throughout Asia and the world. During the Cultural Revolution, the Communist party disseminated posters and comic books to discredit the “Confucian shop.” Paradoxically, images of Confucius were widely promulgated to fuel an iconoclastic movement. Why are such images created? What values are they intended to embody? For what audience are they intended, and what response is expected from that audience? In what kind of setting are the images displayed? What kinds of media are used, and who has access to that media and its distribution?
4. How do viewers respond to visual representations f Confucius? What meanings, if any, do they ascribe to them? Are they ever perceived to be efficacious, impotent, dangerous, authentic, inauthentic, meaningless, or imbued with values? Are they associated with a particular political stance, regime, or set of principles? Are the images worthy of adoration, and if so, why? How are they used ritually? When Taiwanese students place photocopies of their identity cards on the spirit tablets of Confucius at municipal temples during the college entrance examinations, what do they expect to accomplish? Are representations of Confucius ever hated, defaced, or destroyed? If so, why? When Red Guards destroyed images of Confucius and other literati in Qufu and desecrated the Kong clan graves, what were their motivations and that did they actually expect to accomplish by their actions?
Feasibility of the project. Completed research will eventually take the form of a book-length monograph that offers an historical survey, arranged largely chronologically, or the meaning of selected aspects of modern and contemporary images. But at least one article on a particular period (such as the Republican era) could be completed within a few months of my return to the United States. Considering that I have already done some research in this area and formulated a theoretical approach, it is feasible that with my spouse’s connections (my husband and main collaborator, Chen Dexiang, would be accompanying me; he is a 29th generation descendant of the Song scholar Cheng Yi, he is an archivist of his family’s history, and he has excellent connections with many colleagues in China), I could collect though materials in a four-month period that would allow me to complete the better part of a monograph over the next several summers.
Methodology. My plan is to locate source materials in Nanjing collections and conduct field research in the region. Given the city’s history and the region’s resources, I would focus on the Republican era first. Secondly, I would collect materials from the region’s temples, shrines, and second-hand markets that are not available in American archives: Cultural Revolution broadsheets, photographs, posters, or other ephemera, rubbings of inscriptions; booklets produced by temples, and so on. I would also photograph and videotape (when possible) images and inscriptions in shrines and temples.
