1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910810789703321

Autore

Lakos William

Titolo

Chinese ancestor worship : a practice and ritual oriented approach to understanding Chinese culture / / by William Lakos

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Newcastle upon Tyne, : Cambridge Scholars Pub., 2010

ISBN

1-4438-2528-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (159 p.)

Disciplina

299.511213

Soggetti

Ancestor worship - China

Religion and culture - China

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [137]-144) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction. A new approach to understanding Chinese culture -- Watching the ancestors -- Mind-ing the ancestors -- Living with the ancestors: filial piety -- Two concepts of ritual and two understandings of 'Li' -- Challenging the master narrative 'Confucianism-as-Chinese culture' -- Conclusion and consequences.

Sommario/riassunto

This book is a new approach to how we in the West understand China and Chinese culture. It challenges the master narrative of Confucianism and shows that ancestor worship has underpinned Chinese culture in many influential and vital ways and provides a nuanced and more efficacious paradigm through which Chinese culture may be viewed.It is an exposition and analysis of Chinese ancestor worship and its correlations, especially filial piety and ritual, and it shows the intrinsic importance of ancestor worship to Chinese culture. By using a practice theory—ritual—and communication theory approach this work highlights the relationship between the rituals of ancestor worship and their meaning within Chinese culture. In emphasizing the efficacy of ritual to cultural meaning it also questions and compares the master narrative of Confucianism in its role as the prime cultural symbol and paradigm of Chinese culture. China and Chinese culture is conventionally understood by the West through the paradigm and its articulated discourse of Confucianism. In order to ameliorate and overcome the epistemological problematic of a cross-cultural understanding of China, a new approach to the understanding of China



and Chinese culture is proposed. The thesis approach is ‘meta-disciplinary’ and multi-viewed, and draws on a range of evidence and theories which focus on the problematic of ‘cross-cultural understanding.’