Search

This study explores the previously overlooked influence of Qiu Jun, a renowned mid-Ming dynasty scholar, on Jesuit missionaries and Chinese Catholic believers. Although Qiu's impact on Confucian scholars of the mid-to-late Ming period is well established, his role in shaping formalized Chinese ritual systems and Chinese Catholicism has received little attention. A closer examination of Jesuit missionaries' translation of Confucian classics and Chinese Catholic texts from the late Ming and early Qing periods reveals that Qiu's works were frequently cited, particularly in relation to the abolition of divine titles, the worship of Confucius, and the establishment of the City-god system. Qiu's responses to these issues, informed by Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang's efforts to centralize power and establish authority in both secular and religious spheres, served as key references for mid-Ming reforms. Moreover, Jesuit fathers and Chinese Catholic adherents drew on Qiu's perspectives in their writings to address various issues during the Chinese Rites Controversy. This research uncovers the profound impact of Qiu Jun's ideas on the cultural exchange between China and the West in the 17th–18th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nobel Prize, while canonizing contemporary literary works, also establishes a set of standards for literary criticism, thus creating obstacles for properly evaluating prize-winners and their works. Through an analysis of the phenomenon of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Committee's evaluation of Rabindranath Tagore, and its world literature criticism terms, the paper concludes that there are evidences to prove the inequality and pseudo-universality in world literature. World literature at the present time is a "one but unequal" system determined by global market where the main evaluation criteria are primarily based on western standards. Therefore, scholars of world literature should be wary of the inequality and "pseudo-universality" behind the standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]