Contemporary Interpretations and Readings of the Yijing: The Changes in Our Times

by Geir Sigurðsson (Editor), Tze-ki Hon (Editor)

Overview

This book questions whether the ancient, iconic Chinese book of divination, The Classic of Changes (Yijing) might help us navigate the precarious, complex, and seemingly unpredictable intricacies of present contemporary times. The essays contained in this book respond affirmatively to this question in seeking to show how The Classic of Changes can help us think through the particularly human challenge of establishing meaning and making choices between alternatives. The author’s book explores and discusses novel and often surprising ways for contemporary readers to interpret and apply this ancient Chinese classic, touching upon fields such as narration, technology, ecology, psychology, aesthetics, ontology, cognition, semiotics, and gender issues. This book is of appeal to both students and informed readers with an interest in the mysteries of The Classic of Changes, and to researchers in areas of Chinese philosophy, Chinese history, religious studies, and East Asian approaches to health and well-being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789819606085
Publisher:	Springer Nature Singapore
Publication date:	04/30/2025
Series:	Chinese Culture , #15
Pages:	207
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Geir Sigurðsson is Professor of Chinese studies and philosophy at University of Iceland. His research seeks ways to facilitate meaningful dialogues between Western and Chinese philosophy through comparison of methodologies, epistemological approaches, cosmology, views of education, and values of life. He is author of Confucian Propriety and Ritual Learning: A Philosophical Interpretation (2015), which received Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention, an annotated translation of the ancient Chinese classic Sunzi’s Art of War into Icelandic (2019), and over 50 journal articles and book chapters.

Tze-ki Hon is Professor at the Research Center for History and Culture of Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai 519087, China. Concurrently, he is Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at BNU-HKBU United International College. Before he relocated to Zhuhai, he taught at City University of Hong Kong, State University of New York at Geneseo, and Hanover College, Indiana. Over the last three decades, he wrote four books: The Yijing and Chinese Politics (2005), The Allure of the Nation (2013), Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) (with Geoffrey Redmond, 2014), and Revolution as Restoration (2014).

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Part One: New Meanings.- Ancient Chinese Cosmologies and Models for Action: Examining the Influence of the Zhouyion Two Excavated Manuscripts.- Mythic Narratives in the Zhouyi and the Guicang Yi.- Chinese Cosmotechnology: Dao 道 and Qi 器 in the Yijing.- How Do We Know? Intuition and Ratio in the Yijing.- Transformation and Change: The Yijing and Chinese Aesthetic Theory.- Part Two: Contemporary Implications.- The Ideas of Dynamism and Stability in the Yijing and Contemporary Thought.- Image as Instrument (qi 器): Yijing Prognostication and “Knowing” in American Pragmatism.- In Search of Possibilities: The Philosophy of Divination in the Yijing.- Yijing and Feminism: Gender Equality in the Scandinavian Interpretations of the Book of Change.- Yijing and Whitehead: A Comparison of Eight Trigrams Diagram and Categoreal Scheme .- A Paradigm Shift: The Yijing Studies in North America,1980-2020.