Teaching and Transformation in Popular Confucian Literature of the Late Qing

by Katherine L Alexander

Overview

The Taiping Civil War (1851–1864) was one of the most destructive wars in Chinese history, with the death toll estimated between twenty and thirty million. What visions did survivors have for restoring their fractured society once the war ended? Katherine L. Alexander’s Teaching and Transformation in Popular Confucian Literature of the Late Qing approaches these questions through literature by examining the works of evangelical Confucian teacher Yu Zhi (1809-1874), who gave a voice to the zealous side of conservative Confucian reform efforts before, during, and after the Taiping War. His works offer radical visions of a world that could be restored through collective effort and goodness, while also revealing the shifting nature of power and the cracks in Qing society.

Yu’s works complicate the picture of socio-moral reform, particularly the Confucian mission of jiaohua (teaching and transformation). Though he viewed the disasters of the late Qing as the natural consequence of jiaohua’s failure to compete against socially disruptive media, such as vernacular fiction and theatrical productions, he also wanted reformers to engage closely with these genres. Yu became a vocal advocate of teaching with moral vernacular literature that he believed met commoners at their level. He emphasized the hope that by writing, printing, and performing such texts, every member of his audience could be transformed into teachers themselves, restoring society from the bottom up.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472905140
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	08/05/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	278
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Katherine L. Alexander is Associate Professor of Chinese at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

 

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Conventions

Introduction: Words for When the World Falls Apart

Ch. 1: Confucian Censorship and the Appropriation of Vernacular Literature

Ch. 2: Transformative Teaching and the Power of Morality Textbooks

Ch. 3: Salvation from Disaster via Print and Performance

Ch. 4:  Domesticity and Redemption: Homemaking To Avert Calamities

Ch. 5:  Female Audiences, Popular Morality Literature, and the Pitfalls of Incomprehension

Conclusion: Restoring and Remaking a Broken World

Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Rania Huntington

“Katherine Alexander has given us the first English-language monograph focused on the Confucian evangelist Yu Zhi, one of the most fascinating figures of an era when the Chinese world was torn apart and remade. She proves that a morally conservative figure was at the same time a creative revolutionary. Through exemplary research she shows how Yu’s experiments with popular performance literature were sincere attempts to imagine the moral interests and agency of the uneducated majority, in turn granting us rare, if still indirect, access to their perspectives.”

Vincent Goossaert

“The world of late nineteenth-century Chinese scholars was vibrant with religious aspirations, moral anxiety, and eschatological expectations. Yu Zhi is one of the most fascinating authors who spoke out loud about these aspirations and fears. Katherine Alexander’s masterful book does full justice to his unique voice, his travails, and his testimony to a troubled world.”

Editorial Reviews

“The world of late nineteenth-century Chinese scholars was vibrant with religious aspirations, moral anxiety, and eschatological expectations. Yu Zhi is one of the most fascinating authors who spoke out loud about these aspirations and fears. Katherine Alexander’s masterful book does full justice to his unique voice, his travails, and his testimony to a troubled world.”— Vincent Goossaert, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris

“Katherine Alexander has given us the first English-language monograph focused on the Confucian evangelist Yu Zhi, one of the most fascinating figures of an era when the Chinese world was torn apart and remade. She proves that a morally conservative figure was at the same time a creative revolutionary. Through exemplary research she shows how Yu’s experiments with popular performance literature were sincere attempts to imagine the moral interests and agency of the uneducated majority, in turn granting us rare, if still indirect, access to their perspectives.”— Rania Huntington, University of Wisconsin–Madison

From the Publisher